Paradise: A Story of Cults, Adventure, and Blood
by Doc Professor
Summary: Part one of the final story in the Zombieverse. The crew at Little Garden join forces with a new band of adventurers, and they have answers to questions the group never thought to ask. Meanwhile, someone needs Robin's help, whether she wants to or not. Luffy/Nami, Sanji/Baby 5, Coby/Vivi
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

So you're back. Or this is your first time. If it's your first time, you're reading this in the wrong order, so go back and try again. I mean I guess I could sum it up, but you'd really be missing out on some good jokes and character interaction if you started here.

Alright so a handful of years ago, zombies showed up. They popped up one day and started biting people and turning them into more zombies. So, some of the people survived, and some of those people gathered together in Boston and set up this place called Funkytown, and they elected this woman Bellemere as their leader.

So she runs the place, and one day these guys in hoods all show up like a creepy cult. Turns out there's a lot of weirdos out there anyway, people who used the apocalypse to start dressing up and acting like idiots. Like Mad Max, but with more cosplay. Anyway, this cult has a woman with them named Robin. And she reveals that she's immune to the virus that turns everyone into zombies.

The cult wants to get to Atlanta to take her to the CDC, but they're short on supplies, so they need Bellemere's help. So she gives them some vans and supplies and her daughter Nami volunteers to go down with them.

On the way down, they run into this kid, Luffy, who's been living in New York since Zombie Day. And he's the only guy still living in New York. So they let him tag along, and while they're camping out at a motel, Nami leaves a lit cigarette unattended and burns the whole place down. The cult decides to ditch the unintentional pyromaniac, but Robin still wants to get down to the CDC so they keep going.

Unfortunately the CDC's gone, it's been blown up. And then Robin runs into her ex-husband, Crocodile, who runs an apartment building like he's some kinda sleazy king. While they're staying there, they meet up with this cute little married couple, Coby and Vivi, and the five of them end up bailing on Crocodile's little paradise after Luffy knocks him out.

On the way home, they run afoul of Empress Hancock, who is one of those weirdo Drama Kids I mentioned earlier. Vivi ends up negotiating with her and Hancock's army escorts them back home. Hancock and Bellemere get to work trying to negotiate some kinda deal with each other so both their people can mutually benefit, and Nami and Luffy decide to try making out on a long-term basis.

So that's half of it so far. Anyway, a year later, Bellemere and Hancock have worked out this arrangement where they set up a little outpost called Little Garden halfway between their colonies, so shipping supplies back and forth is a bit easier. And to keep things fair, they're sending six people each to maintain the place. So our original five and new boy Sanji are going from Bellemere's place, and Hancock's sending her own people.

Hancock's people are, y'know, weird. But total badasses. Zoro, Franky, Baby, Perona, Law, and Bonney, they were there to balance out the others. And y'know, there were funny hijinks and wacky adventures and eventually they get a visit from this guy Krieg.

So Krieg's the kind of guy who is way too affable to be anything but evil, y'know? Turns out, he actually knows Sanji from back in the day. Killed his mentor and his friends. So Krieg decides he wants Little Garden for himself and storms the gates and starts trying to kill everyone. Well, all that gunfire starts drawing zombies closer and closer and soon this big-ass army of undead start munching on Krieg's dudes. So now our heroes have to cut through this huge swarm of zombies, which they finally do, but their outpost is in shambles.

Anyway, Baby straight up murders Krieg for what he did to Sanji and lets the other survivors high-tail it out of there. And then after all this, Nami's sister Nojiko shows up and says that they found some new colony, and they're in talks to forming a three-way alliance. Whomp whomp whaaaaa.

Yeah you should probably go back and read it all for yourself. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah.

Zombie Day.

Rochester, New York.

Edward Newgate scowled down at the chaos below him. From the top floor of his company high-rise, he could see a myriad of citygoers reacting to the creeping zombie horde. Some were running in a panic, not paying attention to where they were running to. Some were already trying to fight back, swinging homemade weapons or firing their legally owned firearms like it was a dream come true. Some were looting, hoping that by gathering enough DVD players or mannequins, they would be able to either hide and wait for it to blow over, or run a barter town in the wake of the apocalypse. And some, Edward saw, were flipping over a cop car.

He found this to be a tremendous waste of time and energy, but this was an impending apocalypse. The narrative laws of the universe demanded certain conventions, and nothing screams "total anarchy" quite like an overturned police car.

Edward regarded all of this with disgust. Not the people's reactions, that was natural and he couldn't really fault them. He was reacting with disgust and not surprise because he had been planning for the end of the world for a while now. Not the way a paranoid conspiracy buff prepared because he saw a coded message in a politician's Twitter account. Eddy had been preparing because he was privvy to some pretty secure information that few others even knew existed. When he was a young man, which was a ridiculously long time ago, he brute-force learned some knowledge that did not want to be learned. His entire company was a front for preparing people for the end, in whatever way it would come. He sank a fortune into prepwork and yet it still caught him off-guard in the end.

He was not happy about that.

"Oh dear, this is bad. This is happening, isn't it? This is it…" One of his interns had snuck her way into his office. Tashigi was just a teenager who thought she could earn a few college credits getting coffee for businessmen. Then she actually read more about the company legislature and now she felt like she was trapped. She was still just getting coffee, but it felt far more serious when she understood what they were planning for. Now it was playing out in front of her eyes and she could not stop shaking.

"This is it," he said plainly, taking his eyes off the window for a moment to acknowledge her. "One of 'em, at least. Ain't as bad as what we coulda got, I guess."

"So… So what do we do? Are you going to organize a press conference or… Get a militia going?" She adjusted her glasses, the only thing she had control over right now.

Edward scoffed, shaking his head. "You know that was never in the plan. Going on TV now would do nothing. You know as well as I do, we can't broadcast what we know. We have to do this the direct way. Go put the word out downstairs, we're getting a few teams together. Tell them to gather survivors an' bring 'em here. We'll secure this place."

Tashigi nodded, but Eddy didn't see it. "I'll get right on it, sir." As she turned to leave, Edward called out for her again.

"Tashigi. The plan hasn't changed. We're still searching."

Tashigi swallowed hard, steeling herself as much as she could. "O-of course, sir."

Once she was gone, he was alone in his office. He finally looked away from the window to one of the many exotic decorations in his suite. This one was a solid black obelisk, rectangular and perfectly smooth. There were symbols carved into it, like a crappy alphabet designed to piss people off. He glared at it as if he just caught it pissing in his potted plants. "And I'll bet you think this is just fucking hilarious, don't you?" he said to it.

Meanwhile, several years in the future… Specifically, a week after Luffy and the others left for Little Garden. We're also no longer in Rochester, we're further north, in Canada.

There was a bar in Quebec. It was the sort of place you would expect to find in the end of the world. It probably used to be a classy bar that served local microbrews and had handmade barstools or something like that. But six years of wear and tear meant now it looked more like a rowdy medieval tavern. Bars were a necessity in the post-Zombie Day world. Life was stressful and people needed to either drink or get laid, and bars were great places to do one or both of those things.

General Smoker was drinking on that day, because he was in no mood to get laid. After all his work literally went up in smoke and the cult he had regrettably joined on the promise of saving the world, he decided he was done with the world saving business. So he was not happy when someone interrupted him to ask about world saving business. Someone in a hood.

"Howdy, General," the hooded man said, taking a seat next to him at the bar counter. "What can you tell me about Nico Robin?"

Smoker whirled his body around and sent a vicious right hook into the hooded man's face. He fell backwards out of his stool and crashed to the floor. Smoker flexed his hand, shaking the pain out of his knuckles before going back to his drink.

"What the hell, man?!" the guy shouted from the floor, trying to pick himself up. "I was just asking you a question, dude!"

"Cultists in hoods asking about Nico Robin is how I wasted two years of my life. I'm not dealing with her anymore."

The man rubbed his nose to make sure it wasn't bleeding. He approached the bar again, but a little more carefully this time. "I'm not in a damn cult, I'm just trying to find her so I can ask her some questions."

"Then why are you wearing that hood?"

The man gestured to the window. "It's raining outside. How long have you been in this bar?"

"A while, I guess." Smoker drummed his fingers on the bar counter. "Well. Sorry about punching you, then. I mistook you for someone else."

"It's fine… So do you know anything about her?"

"I haven't seen her in over a year," Smoker said. Talking about Nico Robin in general left a bad taste in his mouth, which he tried to wash out with his beer. "Last I saw of her was in Ohio, but I doubt she's still there. She might still be at the CDC. That's where we were heading before we parted ways."

The hooded man shrugged. "CDC's gone. Whole facility blew up, didn't you hear?"

Smoker's eyes narrowed. "Did a scrawny little ginger girl do it?"

"Dunno. We never found out what happened. Why, is this ginger girl important?"

"She's the one who ruined everything for me. Last I saw, she and this other kid were the ones with Robin. You should probably track them down. If I remember right, she lives in Boston. This place called… Ugh. Funkytown. So stupid."

"F- Okay…?" The hooded man waited for Smoker to continue, as if he had more information to share. "I don't suppose you could… escort my people there?"

"No." It came out quicker than the hooded man expected. "I'm done escorting people around. I'm retired from giving a shit."

"Fair enough," the hooded man said. He stood up from the bar counter and headed for the door, clearly knowing he was no longer wanted. "Oh, General!" he called out at the doorway. Again, narrative law demands certain conventions, such as a cryptic one-liner after parting way. "Thank you for bringing us one step closer to saving-"

"Don't care!" Smoker called out, raising his drink and not turning around.

Deflated, the hooded man turned around and walked out the door.

At another time, and another place, there was another bar. This one was way more of a shithole than the one Smoker was drinking in. If Smoker was drinking in a rowdy medieval pub, this place was more like a shack populated by angry, drunken vermin. It was not the kind of place where you would find good, upstanding citizens. It was the kind of place you would find a corpse, and you would know better than to ask if anyone was going to deal with the corpse or if the corpse was supposed to be there. Maybe it was just the bar's corpse or something.

Anyway, speaking of ne'er-do-wells, this bar was currently home to a handful of familiar faces. You might remember Monet, Helmeppo, and Caribou from the last story. They were part of Krieg's gang, and were among the few to actually escape with only psychological damage instead of physical.

Monet, intoxicated as all get-out, had been loudly complaining about the events that transpired in the last story, and how she was a total victim who had done nothing wrong and still lost everything. This caught the attention of a pair of hooded figures, who wanted to know more. They were especially intrigued when they heard her mention a woman who could just walk through the zombies unharmed.

They took our previous villains to a corner booth in the bar, where they could talk more privately, and Monet was more than happy to spill every detail her pickled brain could remember.

"She was cheatin'," Monet slurred. "Cheatin'! She could just walk through 'em like they weren't there! Like Zeus, partin' the Red Sea!"

"That was Moses," Helmeppo said.

Monet whirled around to him and jabbed him in the face with her finger. "FUCK! YOU!"

Helmeppo just grumbled into his drink before Monet turned back to the group. "So it's her fuckin' fault we got all torn up. Okay? The whole group, down t'... four of us."

"Three. We lost Vergo along the way, remember?" Helmeppo again interrupted, prompting Monet to elbow him in the ribs.

"So… You have any idea where I can find this woman?" one of the hooded figures asked.

Monet let out a long, exaggerated groan, rolling her head back for extra emphasis. "I don't fuuuuuckin' 'member! It was some bullshit place north a' here… Gah fuck this, my head hurts. I need t'sober up."

One of the hooded figures withdrew a pistol and pointed it at Caribou, who scrambled up in his seat, unable to move anywhere what with being pinned in the corner of the booth. Before he could shout anything in protest, the trigger was pulled and he slumped down in the booth, dead.

"Dude, that was wholly unnecessary," the hooded man's friend said. He quickly glanced around the bar, but no one seemed to really regard the gunshot, save for Monet and Helmeppo who were now clinging to each other in a trembling fear hug.

"HEY WOW LOOK AT ALL THE SOBER I JUST GOT." Monet squeaked out, wincing when the gun was instead aimed at her.

"Good. So let's try thinking it through again. Where can I find Nico Robin?"

Where was Nico Robin? She was at the same place she had been for the past few months. Ever since the encounter with Krieg, Little Garden outpost had done everything it could to remain vigilant for future attacks from a-holes. From boarding up nearby houses to prevent squatters, to more diligent patrol routes, they were determined to keep potential threats to a minimum. There was a recent stirring in the small community, though.

A month ago, Nojiko and Usopp had arrived on the usual supply drop-off and Nojiko reported that the girls' mother and Hancock were talking to another settlement a few states over. Apparently they were also interested in joining up with this alliance and the three leaders were in talks to work out a proper arrangement.

The Little Garden crew wondered why this would affect them, considering they didn't live in their respective settlements anymore, but two weeks later they got an answer when Johnny and Yosaku dropped off their biweekly supplies.

"Yo so check it, the deal's all squared up and stuff," Johnny had told them. "And to keep things all, y'know fair and whatever? The big guy, Newgate, he's gonna send his own six-man-band down here to Little Garden. You pickin' up what I'm sayin'? Roommates, yo!"

"Wait, they just made the decision without asking us first?!" Nami had said.

Zoro had rolled his eye, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Y'know, it's just like Empress Hancock to do something like this and just _assume_ we'll all be okay with it."

"Bro, we're just the messengers, man. We didn't have anything to do with it, cool?" Yosaku explained. The two of them went on to explain who exactly was coming to town, or at least as much as they knew.

The group called themselves the Whitebeard Expedition Brotherhood. Like Hancock's group claimed to be pirates, the WEB were a band of adventurers.

"Oh yeah, I forgot you guys are supposed to be pirates," Sanji noted.

"So they're like… modern day treasure hunters?" Franky asked. "Wasn't Whitebeard the name of some big-shot banking company back in the day?"

Johnny shrugged. "I dunno. I didn't trust banks. I kept all my money in a hollowed out mattress."

"Bro, you didn't have any money back then," Yosaku muttered.

The WEB had a stated goal of keeping records of the world from before, and also preserving information about the world today. Their leader was Edward Newgate, a man as powerful and influential as he was old. Their members consisted of wildcards, brave souls with a thirst for adventure and lacking a fear of death. Cowboys, bounty hunters, and the like.

"The preservation of history, I can get behind that," Robin said.

"And I can get behind an army of badasses," Zoro also said.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The biggest issue they would have to deal with was housing. Right now, they were at a cozy two people per house, but now they would have an even spread of three per house across the cul-de-sac. They only had two weeks to prepare for the arrival, too, having to clear out and reorganize furniture to accommodate an extra person in their homes. This also meant occasionally going to the boarded up houses outside of the walls and stealing their furniture.

It was while they were in the midst of doing this that Baby, quite meekly, approached Robin. "Ah, if it is not too much trouble… since we are in zhe process of moving zhings around anyway…" she stammered while helping Robin carry a couch into the living room of their place, "Sanji and I have been talking… It would perhaps be better for everyone if we, say, moved in togezher, no?"

Robin stared blankly at her once they set the couch down. "You…" there was no good way to say this without her voice cracking with dread. "You want Sanji to move in here with us?"

"Oh, non, non! I would be moving in wizh him, yes?"

Robin tried to also hide the rush of relief over her face. It's not that she didn't like Baby or Sanji. She just, privately, took issue with how affectionate they could be. Some real Rated R flirting going on between them, if you get what I mean. "Well, I would miss you as a roommate, but if it's what you want…"

Of course, when Baby ran to Franky and Sanji's place to work out that arrangement, Franky mentioned that, since they were moving people around anyway, he'd want to move closer to the storage house, since he wanted to work more on the Frankystein, which put him in Robin's house. Well, she didn't like that because Franky tended to work late into the night and early into the morning and she preferred something quieter. So she went to Vivi and Coby to see if she could room with them, but the couple were already talking about moving in with Law so he could more easily monitor Vivi's pregnancy, and Perona would move… Hoo boy. Okay. To make a long story short...

You might remember there were seven houses in the cul-de-sac that made up Little Garden. By the time all was said and done, the group had rearranged themselves accordingly. Sanji and Baby would take the house starting clockwise from the cul-de-sac entrance. Luffy and Nami stayed right where they were, because Nami had no interest in going through the struggle of moving. Perona and Robin would move into the house formerly occupied by Coby and Vivi. The two young'uns were moving in with Law, which he found most agreeable. Zoro and Bonney weren't going anywhere either, but Franky took the last house, where Robin and Baby used to live. It took a lot of effort, over twice as much as if they had all just stayed put. But that's the danger of the phrase "as long as we're already doing it…"

All this running back and forth left the group pretty exhausted, so they were not in the best of spirits on the day the Whitebeard Expedition Brotherhood arrived at their doors. Zoro, Bonney, and Coby were on guard duty that day, keeping an eye on the horizon, with the others standing around impatiently waiting. They were expecting a few vehicles to transport everyone in. They were not expecting an actual convoy to drive through the gate and settle in the center of the cul-de-sac. The first to arrive was a well-restored van clearly from the 1970's, and yet somehow still operational. Right behind it was a more modern and more embarrassing minivan, which Nami immediately recognized as her own mother's.

It embarrassed her to no end. Bellemere stood alongside Empress Boa Hancock and Edward Newgate, and yet she still saw fit to drive around a minivan.

Behind the minivan was something that made jaws drop, especially Franky's. He burned with jealousy as an actual, legit military-grade humvee rolled through the gate. A quick glance towards his own Frankystein and he suddenly felt so incredibly inadequate.

Then, holding up the rear, and far less impressive, were a pair of pickup trucks. Far more conventional in this day and age, and loaded with necessary supplies.

They weren't too surprised when Bellemere climbed out of her minivan, waving to Nami and running to scoop her and Luffy up in a hug. "OHHH I MISSED YOU TWOOO! I miss having the whole family around!" she squealed, thoroughly humiliating her daughter in front of all her friends. Hancock's people, unfamiliar with Bellemere's mom-tendencies, tried their best to stifle their laughter. Perona failed.

Everyone was surprised, however, when the doors to the older van opened and, in a cloud of smoke, out stepped Empress Boa Hancock. She looked irritated and exhausted, stretching her back and adjusting the dress she was wearing. She coughed, getting fresh air in her lungs for the first time in a while, apparently, and clutched her forehead as she tried to stand up straight. They had never seen her in such a state.

"HOLY SHIT! EMPRESS, YOU RODE SHOTGUN THIS WHOLE FUCKIN' WAY?!" Bonney yelled out from the balcony in her usual tactful nature.

"Yes, well, I thought, in my infinite generosity," she said hypocritically, "I would ride here like a commoner, so as not to overshadow our new allies. But I can see that it was a mistake I shall not repeat."

The driver leaned out of the window. He was a scraggly-looking man, who looked like a combination of Michael Jackson and a dirty freedom-hating hippie. "Hey man, I told you the suspension this thing wasn't great! But you gotta admit, man, ride was smooooooth anyway, right?"

Hancock dragged her hand down her face. "I'm not letting you drive like that anymore, Jango. Especially not while I'm in the car with you."

"Wait a minute…" Robin said, raising an eyebrow. "You needed us to be a steady tobacco supplier, but you still have marijuana?"

"No," Hancock said, eyeing Jango suspiciously while he laughed quietly to himself. "That's not on me. I don't know where he keeps getting it from." At that, she cleared her throat. "Regardless, it is not important! We have gathered here to formally announce the newest member of our alliance! I, Boa Hancock, am proud to present the head of the Whitebeard Expedition Brotherhood, Edward Newgate!"

Everyone looked to the humvee, watching as it actually rocked to the shifting weight of someone climbing out of the driver's side. The man that exited was a behemoth, shirtless and displaying a number of severe battle scars. He covered his bald head with a bandanna, and despite the rough exterior, he proudly displayed a perfectly waxed moustache that he obviously put a great deal of care into.

"Well, that was a nice introduction. Thanks for that, Hancock," he grumbled out. His voice sounded like gravel, rare steak, scotch, and gunpowder. "Hey, all you little brats. I'm Ed," he said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Good Lord…" Coby muttered in awe.

"ARE WE GETTING A GIANT TO LIVE HERE?!"" Luffy screamed.

The old man laughed in that wheezing, hacking way that only the most gravelly of old men can. "Sorry to disappoint, son. I'm just here to make sure the place is up to code, you know? I'm not going to let my kids stay somewhere unless it meets my specifications. If you don't mind, I'll just have a look around while you all get acquainted. Hey, Belle! Hancock!" He called out to the two women. "Let's have a look around."

"Yeah, let's see if my daughter's been throwing any WILD TEEN PARTIES WITH LOTS OF UNDERAGE SMOKING AND DRINKING AND PREMARITAL SEX!" Bellemere yelled to Nami and all of her friends as she gleefully walked over to join Newgate and Hancock.

Despite being grown-ass adults, Sanji and Baby still exchanged nervous glances.

"Honestly, we're not kids…" a voice muttered from the direction of the humvee. Someone climbed out of the passenger seat. Tashigi had changed in the past six years. In that time, she had gone from meek intern to trained swordswoman, carrying a katana at her side at all times. Zoro narrowed his eye at it, silently acknowledging the other swordsman of the group. The others instead eyed her outfit, because someone had told this 20-something that the hip new style of the end of the world was tropical shirts and Mom Jeans.

The rest of the group filed out one by one, all of them radiating their own brand of unique adventurous coolness that none of the others could match up to. There was the blonde woman with the bow and quiver of arrows on her back. She introduced herself as Margaret.

"So are you any good with that thing?" Franky asked. "Cuz we could use an actual sniper around here."

Margaret glanced over her shoulder and let her expression sour. "No, I'm terrible with it. I just carry it around because I like the look." She sighed. "Yes, I'm an accomplished archer. Do you need me to prove it with trick shots or anything?"

Franky raised his hands in defense. "Hey, easy, I was just asking. Archers are cool."

Then there was the blonde dude with the burn scar across one eye who dressed like a Dickens character if Dickens wrote action movies. "Come on, Margie, don't give them a hard time." He took a graceful bow in front of the others. "I'm Sabo. Demolitions expert. Molotovs and pipe bombs and stuff like that. Fireworks, y'know. Boom!" He gestured to the brunette next to him. "And this is Koala. She's my partner-in-crime."

"He means that literally," the girl said, who seemed to take her fashion choices from WWI era bomber pilots. "We were on our way to jail for arson charges when Zombie Day happened."

"Oh hey, so was I! Well, not the arson charges, but yeah I started Zombie Day in my mom's police car!" Nami flashed a smile and a quick thumbs-up to Bellemere, who responded with a similar thumbs up.

The next one to introduce herself leapt forward, performing an agile, if wholly unnecessary, front flip, landing front and center ahead of everyone else and swung her arms open wide. She looked young, even younger than Vivi and Coby. With cute buck-teeth and a little nose, one could almost mistake her for a rabbit. "Hello, everyone! It's ME! Everyone's favorite character! Carrot!" With her bright, beaming smile, they could almost hear the fanfare as she announced herself. Hypothetical confetti rained down from the sky.

Instead she just stood there in silence, until Luffy, Perona, and Vivi offered polite applause.

"Well, damn, how am I gonna follow that up?" Came the last voice, climbing out of the humvee coolly. Of course he didn't have to do anything to impress Luffy, at least. The minute he came into view, Luffy's jaw dropped open.

He looked a lot like Luffy, if Luffy were cooler, taller, more muscular, and had freckles instead of the scar under his eye. He also did not wear a shirt, so as to show off the various tattoos across his chest and arms. He sparkled in the sunlight like a poorly-written vampire, but unlike a vampire, he had a healthy tan that only served to highlight his good looks.

He tipped his hat to the others. "Hey there. Name's Ace, glad to be here."

Luffy pointed at him, eyes wide as dinner plates and jaw on the ground. He elbowed Nami and kept pointing, making sure she could see this Ace guy.

"Yeah, I know. He's really cool-looking isn't he? What's with you?" She asked.

A wheezing sound escaped from Luffy's open mouth as he tried to remember how to speak. When the synapses in his brain finally fired off, he choked out "Tha… Tha… TH-THAT'S MY BROTHEEEEEEERR!" loud enough for everyone to hear, including a handful of zombies wandering around outside the walls.

Ace, naturally, focused on the source of the shrieking, and when he made eye contact with Luffy, his jaw similarly hit the ground and he pointed at the kid, elbowing Sabo. "L-LUFFY! LUFFY! WHA- SABO! THAT'S LUFFY!"

Sabo looked between the two of them. "You mean the little guy that you thought got left behind-GAK!" He was interrupted when Ace grabbed his shoulders, shaking him back and forth in sheer excitement.

"MY LITTLE BROTHER'S ALIIIIIIIVE!" he screamed in Sabo's face.

"ACE!"

"LUFFY!"

"AAAAAAACE!"

"LUUUUFFYYYY!"

Ace let go of Sabo, leaving him stunned and dizzy, and the two siblings charged at each other simultaneously, colliding into the sappiest hug imaginable. Both of them crying waterfalls of tears in the middle of a cul-de-sac street while all their friends and allies stood around awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

From the sidewalk, while they were walking from house to house in their impromptue inspection, Hancock leaned to the side to whisper to Bellemere and Edward. "Did either of you know about this?"

"I knew Ace had a little brother, but I never thought he'd be here…" Edward said, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. "Alright you two, break it up. We still have a lot of work to do here."

"SCREW YOU OLD MAN!" Ace blubbered. "LET ME HAVE THIS, DAMMIT!"

"Such insolence!" Hancock was aghast, her hand to her chest in shock. "Newgate! Tell me you won't stand for a remark like that!"

The old man just chuckled and shrugged his monstrously large shoulders. "Ah, it ain't a big deal. What's more important these days than family?"

"Too true, too true…" Bellemere nodded along.

While Ace and Luffy caught up with each other, the others got to work unloading and moving their stuff into their new homes. Eventually the brothers got in on it too, but they were pretty much inseparable. Luffy only had to beg for a little bit before Nami agreed to let Ace stay with them.

"Truth be told, I'm his cousin. Not really his brother, but we grew up together, so that's just what we call each other," he said to her while they were getting his new room set up. Luffy was bounding back and forth between the trucks and their house, giving Ace and Nami a chance to get to know each other.

"So you two were really close?" she asked, opening up a box containing a variety of jock alpha-male accessories.

"Ahaha, yeah! We did everything together! He'd follow me around wherever I went." He turned away from the box he was opening to look at her. "How did he end up here? Last I saw him was New York!" The smile vanished from his face. "Be-... Because I thought he was dead."

"W-well he's not!" Nami said hastily, trying to pull him back to reality. "He is in fact one of the liveliest people I've ever met! We actually found him there, in New York. I think… he was under the impression that he was the last man on earth?"

Ace shook his head and brought himself back. "Oh jeeze, I've run into those guys before. Usually they have a score in the ten thousands and they think you're the zombie government come to take their jobs. He didn't… y'know, go crazy and try to shoot you or anything?"

Nami's expression was blank. "No, I hit him with a van and knocked him the hell out."

Ace just shrugged, "Yeah, you wouldn't be the first one." He was quiet for a minute. "Holy crap, he's alive. I thought for sure that…"

"Do you need a minute?" Nami asked with concern while still trying to seem cool and detached.

Ace's voice came out strained. "Yeah, I just need to-"

And then the house's front door was kicked in and from Ace's new room, they could hear Luffy scream out "ACE I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE ACTUALLY GONNA LIVE WITH UUUUUUUSSS!"

While all that was happening, Sanji and Baby were busy helping their new roommate get her stuff moved in. "So…" Baby asked, nudging her with her elbow while they were carrying her things inside. "Is your name really Carrot?"

Carrot nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! Well, no. Actually my name's Carolyn, but when I was a baby and my teeth started coming in, everyone said I had buck teeth! And so everyone started calling me Carrot, because I looked like a bunny! But actually then when I got older I learned that bunnies don't actually like carrots, they actually like lettuce, but then it turned out that I actually really like carrots anyway! So even though it didn't work out that I was Carrot because I look like a bunny, it still works because I just plain really like carrots!" She was beaming as bright as a star, which reflected nicely in the starstruck expressions of her older roommates.

"Good God, she's the most adorable thing I've ever met!" Sanji practically squealed.

"I am so happy you have come to live with us~!" Baby literally, actually did squeal. "Do not worry about anyzhing, petit lapin! Your big sister Baby will protect you from all zhe world's evils!" She swept up the teenager in a tight, spine-cracking hug.

When released and allowed to breathe, Carrot grinned brightly. "Oh, that's not necessary! I know how to protect myself! I couldn't be in Mr. Newgate's Brotherhood if I weren't super strong!"

"Is that so?" Sanji asked in a way that suggested he was partially humoring her. "What's your score, then?"

"10,294!" She bounced eagerly on her heels. This was a child that clearly had trouble sitting still.

If Baby or Sanji had been drinking something, they would've choked on it. "Zhat-... Zhat is a lot for someone so young!"

"It'd be higher if living people counted too!" The smile finally vanished from her face when she realized how implicating that sounded. "They were all self-defense."

Baby quickly threw an arm over Sanji's neck and pulled him in close so only he could hear what she whispered to him. "I do not say zhis often, my love, but I am intimidated by zhis child."

"Yeah…" Sanji whispered back. "That rabbit's dynamite."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Meanwhile (you can see where this is going) Zoro and Bonney were helping Tashigi move in. Or rather, Bonney was making Zoro do all the work while she hit on Tashigi in a wholly inopportune and crass manner.

"To be honest, that outfit of yours isn't working. You should probably take it off, like… right now," she said, grinning and holding the door for Tashigi to walk in, arms full of containers.

Tashigi passed by and gave her an incredulous, yet polite look. "Thank… you? I wouldn't expect… fashion advice from you. You look hot."

Which made Bonney grin wider, narrowing her eyes in a facsimile of a seductive look. "Well, thank you~"

Tashigi blushed a little. "Oh. No, I meant. You're wearing a thick bomber jacket and it's summer. You're probably really warm in that."

"I could take it off if it's bothering you~"

"I would prefer it if you could just… show me where I'm staying, so I can set all this down." She adjusted her grip to keep the stack from toppling over.

"Oh yeah, right this way~" Bonny cooed, shutting the front door in Zoro's face as he walked up the steps of the front porch.

"GOD DAMN IT, BONNEY!"

There wasn't nearly as much commotion going on with getting Margaret settled in Robin and Perona's house. Three women with poor social skills all living together would have that result. Perona hovered around Margaret while they were unpacking, hoping to catch a glimpse at one of her possessions that could spark up a conversation, but nothing was coming up. It was frustrating her to no end that she would get stuck with such boring roommates.

She didn't want to start off with the boring questions. Where are you from, what did you do before all this, blah blah blah the most uninspired topic you could talk about these days. The only thing that looked moderately interesting was Margaret's hunting supplies. She didn't have any guns. She had bows, arrows, knives, and snare traps. A lot of her tools looked hand-crafted. There was a hatchet literally made out of a sharpened stone, a sturdy branch, and some twine. As she unpacked and set up her gear in her room, she looked over at Perona and Robin, standing in the doorway. She silently dared them to ask about it.

Robin worked up the courage first. "I take it you used to be a hunt-"

"Yes." Margaret cut her off before she could finish her sentence. She looked away and resumed laying out her equipment. Robin, caught off-guard, tried and failed to recover the conversation.

Perona looked between the two of them. "It's… so _cold_ in here…" she muttered before Robin pulled her out of the room to give Margaret some space.

"This isn't going to work out," Robin said once they were clear of Margaret's room. "We need to do something."

"You're right," Perona punched her hand into her palm. "We need to kick her out and tell old Captain Moustache that we want someone cooler to hang with us."

Robin shook her head. "No. No, Perona. No. Not at all what I meant. We need to find something we have in _common_ with her."

Perona sneered in disgust at the idea. "That's _way_ more work than I want to put in. It would be easier to just discard her and get a new friend instead."

"YOU AREN'T THAT FAR AWAY, YOU KNOW!" Came Margaret's voice from her room. "I CAN HEAR YOU TWO!"

"Fuck! Scatter!" Perona ran for the back door of the house, leaving Robin alone to regret her life choices once again.

Things were going way better over at Franky's new place, with Sabo and Koala. For one thing, they were actually engaging him. He hadn't had a lot of time to get the garage set up as a proper workshop, but that just meant a lot of his new gadgets were strewn out in various states of construction. Although, even if they were completed, it still might be impossible to tell what their purpose was.

"I hope you two don't mind me working down here all the time! I got a lot of ideas up here that are just _dying_ to get out!" He tapped the side of his head to indicate his intelligence.

Sabo just shrugged, a dumb smile on his face. "Dude, you already told me you like making things that explode, and you turned a jeep into a… Whatchacallit?"

Koala offered an eyeroll and a bemused grin. "An affront to God, nature, ingenuity, and humanity?"

Franky beamed and made finger guns at Koala. "HEEEYYY! You got the right idea!"

"What _is_ all this stuff?" Sabo asked. He picked up what looked to be a smoke alarm duct-taped to a plastic peanut butter jar filled with broken and rusty nails.

"Well, that one's a proximity mine that draws zombies up close. Alarm goes off, they come for it, get close enough, then it detonates and sends nails flying everywhere."

This caused Sabo to jump, then hold the thing out as far as he could. Franky just laughed out loud. "Don't worry, it ain't anywhere near done! There isn't even anything combustible in it yet! I figure I should get the proximity sensor down before I fill it with gunpowder or whatever."

"Aaaand what about this?" Koala reached for a blueprint with a bunch of quick, scribbled sketches resembling a pistol.

Franky nodded at them. "Those are plans for a spring-loaded pistol thing that'll have the power of firing a gun, with the convenience of retrievable ammo. Cut down on bullet production, y'know? I just need a way to get the right amount of power behind the shot…"

Sabo picked up a baseball bat with an assortment of nails hammered through it, as well as a chain wrapped around to increase the weight. "And this?"

"That's a baseball bat with an assortment of nails hammered through it, with a chain wrapped around to increase the weight," Franky explained. When his new roommates looked slightly disappointed by the relative mundaneness of the piece, he shrugged. "Hey, sometimes the old standards are the best bet."

Sabo and Koala looked at each other and, in the span of a few seconds, had a silent conversation consisting entirely of facial expressions. "Franky, we're gonna like it here."

It took most of the day to get everything unloaded and set up to a point where it was liveable. The real unpacking could happen at everyone's leisure, but the trio of leaders couldn't really afford to stick around much longer. They had settlements to run, after all. The sun was in its final moments of setting by the time they were ready to go, with Bellemere clinging tight to her daughter. "I'm so proud of you, you know? You've really made this place work! And without any trouble going on!"

Nami laughed awkwardly and glanced away. No one except for Little Garden knew what had happened with Krieg, and they were going to keep it that way for everyone's sake.

"I trust our facility meets your expectations, then?" Hancock said to a rather proud looking Newgate.

"Oh, absolutely. Couldn't be happier sending my kids here. Walls are solid, houses are secure, power's runnin'... Yeah. I got no complaints about this setup."

"As is to be expected. I myself would not tolerate shoddy living conditions for any of my people." She looked to her mode of transportation for getting home and a shiver ran involuntarily up her spine. "Jango! We're leaving!" she called out, her voice cracking. Jango managed to pull himself away from the suspicious, whispered conversation he was having with Bonney.

"Comin', Empress!" he called out, then leaned back to Bonney. "I'll getcha what I can, you just pay up, yeah?"

Before Newgate could climb into his humvee, Franky approached him as casually as an employee asking their boss for a raise. "Heeeeyyy… Listen, I was just wondering. I know you're leavin' us those pickup trucks and, I mean hell, that's great. Those are real helpful, reliant automobile, y'know? But uh… It would be _super_ useful if we could have that there humvee instead? Y'know, for protection?" He flashed a cheesy grin towards the old man.

Edward looked from the grinning, flamboyant robot man to the humvee he was literally about to climb into. He seemed to briefly consider Franky's suggestion, but really he was more thinking about the best way to let him down. "I… I think I'll pass, budy."

Franky's smile flickered. "A-are ya sure?"

"Pretty sure."

At that, Franky lost all composure. "AW COME ONNNNN!" He wailed out, throwing his hands forward in a begging manner. "DO YOU KNOW HOW SUPER BADASS I COULD MAKE THIS THING?! I'VE WANTED TO WORK ON A REAL MILITARY VEHICLE FOR _YEARS!_ "

Ed clapped his hand on Franky's shoulder. The immense weight of it nearly took Franky down. "Well, son… You're gonna keep waiting. Sorry, but I need this thing." As he climbed into the humvee, he called out to Franky. "Besides! I just plain don't fit in the trucks!"

With that, the gate creaked open, metal grinding along the railing because they hadn't completely flattened it out after Krieg plowed through it, and let the trio of leaders exit the outpost. The eighteen members of Little Garden were left unsupervised again.

Meanwhile, elsewhere and elsewhen, Monet couldn't see a damn thing. Ever since she and Helmeppo were dragged kicking and screaming from that bar, they had been blindfolded with their wrists bound. It felt like it had been an eternity since she'd gotten to see anything. She knew they had been on the road for most of it, she was yanked in and out of cars the whole time. It becomes difficult to keep track of time when one can't see the sun rising and setting, but it had to have been at least three days of driving.

Now, she had been tugged and pulled on foot into what she assumed was a building. She was led up, and almost fell down, a flight of stairs, and then an elevator ride. After that, she was brought to a room and, she assumed, left alone. She heard the shuffling of feet, and the sound of a door slamming behind her. In a desperate hurry, she reached her still-bound hands up and tore the blindfold off, blinking in the sudden blinding light and assuming she had been dropped off in some kind of torture chamber.

It was not a torture chamber, she realized when her eyes adjusted. It was in fact, a luxurious hotel suite, still pristine and in perfect condition. "What… the fuck…?" she muttered out loud. It was laid out like an apartment, but the decor indicated upperclass tropical vacation spot. She took a few tentative steps inside, then looked down at her wrists and realized they were still bound up by bungee cords. She twisted and tried to pull her wrists apart, but they were bound too tightly to budge. "I wonder if this is bad for my circulation…" she muttered aloud.

From her position in the entrance hallway, she was facing a sitting area, with a couch, a flatscreen TV, even a small dining room table. There was a door to the left, which presumably led to the bedroom, but it didn't appear like anyone was living here long-term.

There were a few signs that the room had been recently visited, though. There wasn't any dust on the furniture, one of the chairs at the table was askew. The most telltale sign that it had a recent occupant was the sound of the toilet flushing from behind the bedroom door.

Monet stood there in silence, considering whether or not she should try to hide somewhere. Surely the front door to the room was out of the question, probably guards there waiting for her to try and escape. She couldn't remember how many flights of stairs she went up, nor did she have any way to judge how long the elevator ride was. She shuffled as quietly as possible to the balcony, fumbling to get the glass door open. When she stepped out and looked down, she noticed two things. The first is that she was near the ocean, but she had no idea which one. The second was that she couldn't count how many floors up she was, which meant that even trying to jump out would be immediately fatal.

Too late, anyway. The bedroom door swung open and someone stepped out. Monet whirled around to see a man she swore she recognized from somewhere. He had abs and biceps like a showman weightlifter and skin so pale he could blend in with a pile of copy paper. He was shirtless and wearing just an ornamental robe around his waist. There were plain sandals on his feet, and a white cap on his head. She tilted her head at him, trying to place where she could know a guy like him.

"Oh! You're here earlier than expected." He said to her. "I wish someone would have warned me they were ahead of schedule, but I suppose this is fine too." He took one look at her bound wrists and scoffed in exasperation. "Oh for- Now, how is this any way to treat a proper guest? I swear, I'm going to have a word with them. You're hardly a prisoner here!" He crossed the room to approach her and muttered to himself while he untangled the mess of cables around her wrists.

Once she was free, she flexed her hands and made sure she could still feel her fingertips. "I do apologize for that. I hope you weren't like this the entire trip here."

Monet eyed him suspiciously. "Well, they did sort of… blindfold me and my friend. And they shot my other friend before kidnapping us."

The man rolled his eyes in utter exasperation. "Oh, that's so typical of them! I _try_ to be a good role model, you know? Lead by example and all that. I'm trying to do good in the world! And yes, sometimes that requires taking a violent approach to a situation, but really. What kind of first impression is it when your missionaries go around killing the very people you're trying to save?"

"Mission… aries…?" Monet tilted her head to the side. This guy was a nutjob, and she had dealt with those in the past.

The man seemed even more shocked at this. "Did they really explain nothing to you?! What we're doing here, what our purpose is? Oh, that's fantastic. Alright, sit down, sit down." He gently nudged her towards the couch in front of the TV, which she dropped down onto. He steepled his hands in thought. "Now, where to begin… I suppose I could start with my name-"

"OH SHIT! YOU'RE ENER-G! YOU WERE THAT… THAT DJ RAPPER GUY!" Monet suddenly blurted out, sitting up in her chair. "Shit, dude, I knew I recognized you from somewhere! I had your album!"

He looked nonplussed about being interrupted. He was silent, testing to see if she would say anything else, then continued speaking. "It's true, I did call myself that before the dead walked the earth. But before the 'Zombie Day', I was gifted with a glorious and divine revelation. Granted sight beyond what the rest of the world could perceive."

"You did drugs the night before Zombie Day, got it," Monet muttered.

He contained his frustration with the woman for now. "Not even close. I wouldn't expect you to believe it right away, but I assure you that the knowledge I gained is what preserved me against the hordes of the undead. These blessings granted to me, I tasked myself with spreading them to the rest of this miserable planet. It's only fair, don't you think? What kind of god would abandon their people in the wake of disaster?"

"So you're like… a prophet? A preacher or something?"

Ener-G grinned knowingly, "Ah, a prophet. A mouthpiece of God. No, it's not quite that. I didn't just receive a vision. I didn't just hear the voice of God calling me. No, it's far more than that. It's more accurate to say that I _received_ God. Not a prophet, not a speaker. I _am_ God. I am no longer a slave to mortality, I am a divine being. And you, my child, are welcome within the safety of my new kingdom."

Something shifted in the air. Monet couldn't tell if it was an actual change in the pressure, or if it was just the air conditioner kicking on in the room. Either way, she felt a shiver go up her spine. Something about this guy felt unnatural, more than just what he was saying.

"And I would prefer you not use my former, mortal name. After becoming the god of this dying world, I saw fit to give myself a new name. You may refer to me as Enel. And this…" he gestured to the room in its entirety, "Is Paradise."

Monet looked around, and Enel could tell she was still not picking up what he was putting down. He tried dumbing down his language. "Listen, I regularly send out my missionaries to see if I can recruit like-minded individuals to join my flock. Here in Paradise, you don't need to worry about raiders, or the undead, or running out of food and water. All your needs and wants will be taken care of."

"O… kaayyy… That part I understand," Monet said, nodding slowly. "You want me to live the good life here in, uh, Paradise."

Enel took a deep breath. "Well… Not exactly." He steepled his hands and looked down at her. "Truth be told, having you stay here is only an added bonus to my true goal. You see, while you were being brought up here, my missionaries told me that you have some pertinent information that I would like. I heard you know of a woman who can walk through zombies unfettered. So I want to ask you, where can I find Nico Robin?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"IS THAT A COW?!" Carrot shouted at the top of her lungs, pointing across the beach-Whoa! Sorry, I got ahead of myself there, let's go back a bit.

Ace was the first of the new recruits to get stuck on morning guard duty. The way the original system worked was on a six hour shift basis. Three people on the gates for six hours equaled out to everyone working a shift a day, which was neat and orderly but also _exceedingly_ boring. Having six new people to cover shifts was a huge relief on everyone in Little Garden. Shifts were long, not much happened, and during the night shift people kept falling asleep anyway.

The system was designed by Franky and Robin to prevent incidents like Krieg, but constant vigilance could only last for so long. As the mind-numbing routine days and nights pressed on, the crew became more and more lax with the actual schedule. Eventually the midnight-to-6:00am shift was reduced to two people, on the logic being that too much activity up top would actually draw more attention. Then further caveats were made in case the weather was bad. If the rain was coming down, then visibility was bad, so no reason to have a full guard shift. Or if it was too hot, passing out due to heat exhaustion wouldn't be helpful. Eventually, their vigilance whittled down to "If you don't have anything else going on for the day, you might as well chill out on the balcony and keep an eye out". The exception being on delivery days, on which they had a full 24 hour shift running. To create the illusion of productivity, you see.

All of this to say that Ace was not enjoying his time patrolling the wall. He was with Luffy and Robin, so he appreciated getting to hang out with his little brother, and Robin seemed cool enough, but after walking slow circles around the balcony, he was starting to get a little fidgety.

"So… Little bro," he muttered to Luffy, whose attention had been caught by a zombie a few houses down trying to aimlessly claw its way through a wooden privacy fence. "Is this, uh… it for you guys? You just kinda hang out here all day?"

"Pretty much!" He grinned widely, which seemed to be his default expression whenever he looked at his older brother. "Sometimes we do target practice or Franky builds something that explodes or Zoro and Sanji get in a fight, and sometimes we'll go on an adventure. But usually it's just sittin' around here."

Ace snapped his fingers, "See, now that's what I'm talking about!"

"It's usually not that big a deal, they argue a lot but they're pretty good friends," Luffy said.

"No no no, the adventure part! Man, I'll bet there's tons of cool shit around here to explore! Houses and stuff, and we're right near the beach? You ever go and see if there are any boats tied up?"

"Oh yeah! We have a boat! I think…" Luffy scratched at his head. "I thought we did… We've never used it though…"

"YES! Yes!" Ace clapped his hands on Luffy's shoulders. "That's what I'm talking about! Fishing trip, you and me! Alright? You gotta get me caught up on everything that's happened, bro! We gotta make up for lost time, right?!"

Luffy shined like a diamond. "YEAH! I WANNA GO! I WANNA GO RIGHT NOW!"

Ace looked out onto the outpost suspiciously. "Man, if only we could just sneak away now… If there were more people here it'd be easier to duck out of guard duty…" he muttered to Luffy.

"Oh just go, don't worry about it." Ace and Luffy had no idea how long Robin had been listening in, or when she had actually snuck up on them, but both of them nearly jumped in surprise. Ace whirled around and waved his hands in defense.

"Ahaha, no, no, we were just joking! I'm not gonna bail or anything! This is important work, right?"

Robin rolled her eyes bemusedly. "If you want to stay and guard, I won't try to convince you otherwise. But believe me, I've long since given up on getting this group to stick to a schedule. I'll find someone else to cover for me if you want to go exploring the neighborhood. If you'd prefer, you can say it's a scouting mission. Be proactive, clear out any threats before they get to our perimeter."

Ace still looked hesitant, wanting to make a good impression, but Robin just shook her head. "The only people who will judge you for leaving are myself and Franky, and Franky will forgive you if you bring him back something cool. Which could literally be anything, he's very easy to impress."

"And how do I get back into your good graces?"

Robin waved a hand dismissively. "Ohhhh don't worry about that. I'll forgive you. Eventually."

Ace wasn't sure what to make of Robin, but after silently trying to discern her true motives, if she had any, he decided to scale the ladder down to see if anyone else wanted to head out. Luffy followed right on his heels, shaking with excitement.

It didn't take long for Carrot to zip in front of them, blocking the way. "I WANNA GO!" she squealed.

Ace recoiled back. "H-how did you-?! Who told you we're going anywhere?"

"I could tell! I just _knew_ you were setting off on an adventure! I wanna come with you! Oh please oh pleasepleasepleasepleeeeaaaaaaaaase, Ace!" She was about to collapse to her knees, hands clasped pleadingly.

"Alright, alright, easy, killer rabbit! You can come with us!" Ace put his hands on her shoulders to keep her still. "We're going fishing though, which requires a lot of being quiet and sitting still. You up for that?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah! I can sit still! I can be quiet! Here, watch!" She then proceeded to become a statue. Silent and immobile, barely even breathing. Her pupils expanded like she was in some kind of trance state and Ace leaned over to whisper to Luffy.

"Go get the gear and the keys to a car, I'm gonna see how long she can keep this up."

Luffy bounded towards his house, flinging the door open and dashing down the stairs to the basement. He quickly scanned the boxes and shelves that had been haphazardly placed down there to be sorted "At A Later Date", but couldn't find anything resembling fishing gear. He tapped his foot impatiently, tilting his head to the side while trying to think. He was positive they had fishing poles, he just couldn't remember where…

He bounded back up the stairs like an excitable dog and headed for the house's back porch. There, Nami was sunbathing, as per usual at this time of year. She twisted her face up behind her sunglasses when the sun was suddenly eclipsed by her boyfriend's head leaning over her.

"Hey. What are you doing down here?" She asked up at his grinning silhouette.

"Where are the fishing poles?" He said, not answering her question at all.

Her eyebrow raised in curiosity. "Fishing…?" She slowly raised her hands and placed them on his cheeks, squishing his face. "Didn't we talk about this? Hooking a zombie from over the wall and reeling it in like a fish is hilarious as an idea, but in practice it's just a good way to lose hooks, _or_ bring a zombie into our walls. Remember?"

"Oh yeah, I remember! But we're gonna go actual for real fishing!" A thought emerged from the depths of his mind. "Oh! Do you wanna come with us?!"

"Did you get someone to cover you on the wall or not?" She asked, ignoring his other question for now.

"Robin has it covered. So you wanna come with us? It's gonna be me and Ace and Carrot!"

She pondered that situation for a moment. She hadn't had a chance to talk to Ace for real yet, and she was itching to know more about him. What were the odds that someone from Luffy's past would show up at their doorstep like that? Maybe this would be her chance to learn a bit more about him. And on top of that, having Carrot around was bound to be hilarious. The girl was like Luffy on a permanent caffeine high. "Alright, I'm in. Lemme go change and we can head out."

Luffy leaned down and kissed her before bounding off to tell the others. She sat up from the lawn chair to watch him off, but instead he stopped, pivoted around, and stared at her blankly. "So… where's the fishing stuff?"

Nami pointed in the direction of the storage house. "Somewhere in the basement there, I think." As Luffy bounded off again, she called out "AND DON'T FORGET TO GET THE BOAT KEYS FROM FRANKY!"

By this point, the storage house had become a walk-in nightmare. The original intent of the seventh house had been to hold the general supplies and trading goods, to keep them easily stocked and in order. However, it had now become a house-sized junk drawer. Anything that wasn't immediately needed got shoved in the basement or in some room of the house. In their defense, the food and medical supplies were kept neat and easily accessible. But anything else? You're on your own, kid.

It took Luffy a while to find and gather everything they'd need. Fishing rods, a box of colorful lures. He thought that was all he'd need until Nami appeared at the top of the stairs reminding him that they would also need a big cooler to keep the fish in, and Ace appeared to remind Luffy that they'd need another cooler so they wouldn't starve while they were out there. The impromptu fishing trip was turning into a whole event that would've rendered sneaking out impossible, even if the rest of Little Garden cared.

By the time they had loaded up the pickup truck, pretty much everyone else knew what was going on. Ace still felt a little sheepish about up and bailing on his duties, but the general apathy at shirking responsibility from the others helped dissuade that. He felt better once they were on the road.

"So the boat should still be tied up there… It was attached to a dock, I guess? We'll know it when we see it," Nami said from the passenger side of the truck. "None of us have actually been on it, Hancock's people just told us it was there."

Ace was driving, keeping an eye out for zombies shambling in the street. "You've been here for months and you never took the boat out?!"

Nami shrugged. "We haven't had a chance." She was holding the keys up in front of her. Attached to them was a keychain tag with the boat's name handwritten on a laminated strip of paper. "It's called the…" She suddenly frowned. "The SS Oceanfucker. God damn it, can no one name things normally around here?!"

Carrot gasped in a completely scandalized way. "You said a bad word!"

Nami slapped her hand over her mouth in shock. "Oh shit-! Ah-! I mean crap! I'm sorry, you-..." she turned around in her seat to look at Carrot, squinting her eyes in suspicion. "A bad word? How… old are you?"

"I'm fifteen!" Carrot fumed. "But no matter how old I am, you shouldn't swear! It's rude!"

"Yeah, Nami! It's rude!" Luffy parroted, matching Carrot's indignation.

She turned around further to glare at Luffy. "Oh you swear all the time!"

"I do not!"

"Yes you do!"

The only one experiencing any amount of zen was Ace, who was oddly content hearing his little brother bicker with his friends about absolutely nothing. It was probably the happiest he'd been in a long time. That happy feeling soured when he pulled up to the beach where the boat was docked. "Ahhhh hell," he muttered. The other three broke away from their argument to see what caught his attention.

Beaches are poor options when you are looking for refuge in a zombie apocalypse. There is no shelter, sand is difficult to run in, and the lines at the concession stands will STILL be long. That's the immediate problem with beaches. There's another problem that occurs when you go back to a beach that had been unoccupied for quite some time.

Do you know what happens to a corpse that's left in saltwater for years at a time? And were you also aware that the vast majority of beachgoers tend to wear swimsuits that reveal a lot of skin? These two elements combined to create a menagerie of bloated, rotting corpses strewn across the sand. Hancock's people had been there to drop off the boat, and they had cleared out the area, but that was months ago. The bodies were all still there, some burst open, organs and muscle rotted far past the point where even seagulls wouldn't bother with them.

As soon as the foursome left the safety of the truck, the smell hit them like a cinderblock to a plastic bag full of stew. They all gagged and coughed, trying to cover their noses immediately, but there was no getting around that.

"Nope. Nope, this isn't happening," Ace sputtered, his voice muffled by the hand over his mouth and nose. "We're not walking through that."

"Aw, come on!" Luffy groaned. "It's right there! We can cross this!" But he didn't sound so sure himself.

Nami put a comforting hand on Luffy's shoulder. "Sorry, babe. We're gonna need to clean this up before we come back. Even if we made it to the boat, we'd still have to prep it and everything and I'm not breathing that in the whole time."

Regretfully, Luffy started to climb back into the truck with the others. "Don't get so down, bro. You and me can come back and clean this place up ourselves if we have to. We'll find some cool WWII gas masks and stuff to wear and everything!" Ace told him. That seemed to raise Luffy's spirits a little.

They were about to drive off when they suddenly heard a low moaning sound somewhere nearby. At first, they feared a swarm of zombies, but they couldn't see anything besides the corpses on the beach. Eventually, one of them saw the source of the noise.

"IS THAT A COW?!" Carrot shouted at the top of her lungs, pointing across the beach. She lunged forward, halfway leaning into the front half of the truck to make sure everyone else could see where she was pointing.

It was a cow. Moving clumsily through the sand, completely unaware of any of its surroundings. It mooed, tail swishing behind it. The group stared blankly at it from the truck. Eventually Carrot broke the silence. "Right there! See?! A cow!"

"We see it, Carrot," Ace said. "We're just… what's it _doing_ there? Are there any farms nearby?"

Nami shrugged. "I'm more wondering how it didn't immediately become zombie chow."

Luffy was the one to ask the obvious question. "We're gonna take it with us, right?" Which made everyone else in the car turn to stare at him, prompting him to continue. "Well, we can't just leave it out there! And besides, how cool would that be?! We'd have a cow at the outpost!"

Nami and Ace, being the responsible pair of this quad, looked at each other and then shrugged simultaneously. Nami bit her thumbnail and looked back towards the farm animal. "I do feel kinda bad for it. It's gonna get eaten if it stays out here."

"Yeah, but… How do we get it to come with us?" Ace asked.

Answering his question, Carrot hopped out of the truck and cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. "HEY! COW! COME OVER HERE!" she shouted as loud as she could. The cow huffed and shook its head, glancing over in her direction, and then turning away again. "C'MON COOOOWWW! LOOK AT MEEEE!" When that failed to draw its attention, she instead turned to mooing loudly.

The cow responded with its own moo, which caught the others by surprise. "You've offended her!" Ace teased. It seemed to work, though. The cow turned more towards the source of the noise and started lumbering across the sand towards Carrot and the others.

Carrot gasped in amazement and, in a flash of quick thinking, bounced into the bed of the pickup truck, where the snack cooler was sitting. She flung the lid open and fished out an apple, bounding back where she started and held it out for the approaching cow.

When it got close enough, it sniffed at the apple and took it from Carrot's hand. The others looked on in amazement. " _You're the cow whisperer…_ " Luffy gasped. Carrot didn't hear it. She was too focused on the giant creature in front of her. She squealed, petting the cow's head while she ate the snack.

"We have to keep her now. We have to. I already love her," she said. There wasn't really any arguing with that.

"If you think you can lead her back, then we'll take her, I guess," Ace mused. He started the truck back up and turned around to head back towards the outpost. It was a five minute drive in the car. On foot would be an entirely different issue, especially with a barely-trained cow in tow.

Escorting the cow was a test on everyone's patience. She would get distracted and attempt to wander away from Carrot. Or sometimes she would just randomly stop in the middle of the road, forcing Carrot to coax her into moving again. Ace had to make sure he didn't drive too fast or else he'd put too much distance between them, and every so often, Luffy and Nami would have to climb out of the truck to help take care of zombies who, for whatever reason, had only decided to show up on the way _back_ home, and were conspicuously absent earlier in the day.

"THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS!" Carrot shrieked, throwing a zombie to the ground before it could take big bite of beef tenderloin. She punted it football-style in the jaw, shattering the rotted jawbone immediately. "IT'S LIKE SHE DELIBERATELY WANDERS INTO DANGER! Doesn't she know she can't defend herself?! We have to do it for her!"

Nami stabbed a zombie in the head from behind. "I thought you'd love this kind of thing! It's a perfect excuse to bump up your score!"

Carrot looked around, making sure the coast was clear before giving the cow a gentle shove to keep her going in the right direction. "I like just killing zombies. It's too stressful when I have to watch over some little helpless thing!" She sighed, looked pityingly at the cow, then hugged it. "You're lucky you're so cute."

Nami gave a pointed look towards Luffy. "How often do I say that to you?"

"Like… five times a week."

A five minute drive to the shore took them almost two hours to walk back from, when all was said and done. Luffy, Nami, and Carrot were covered in blood by the end, but the cow looked like she had just gotten a bath. They stood in front of the gate and Luffy called out to whoever was up there, "OPEN UP AND LOOK WHAT WE FOOOUUUND!"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Yyyyyyyyep," Sanji said, arms crossed and nodding. "It's a cow."

Bringing a cow into the outpost had caused about as much of a stir as one would expect. Once they were safely inside, Carrot had let the cow wander around unguarded, making sure everyone would notice the new addition. Most of the crew had stepped outside to confirm that it was indeed real. Robin and Coby were following it from the balcony, keeping their distance as it tromped through people's backyards. Zoro, Tashigi, and Bonney were all standing on their back porch, watching it walk around.

Law looked from the farm animal to the four who brought her back, and then shoved his hands in his pockets. "Alright, I'm done. Come call me when you bring home something less stupid." He turned around and headed back for his house.

Baby and Sanji were standing near the foursome that brought it in. "I don't know how you guys found her or managed to get her here, but good job. A cow will… actually be helpful. Fresh milk and cheese, less supplies needed," Sanji noted.

Luffy and Carrot looked at each other, then back at Sanji in confusion. "Oh! Yeah! I guess we could use a cow for that, huh?" Luffy muttered.

"Wait… Why else would you bring it here?" Sanji asked.

"We didn't want to leave it out there!" Luffy explained.

"And I've always wanted a pet!" Carrot added.

Sanji looked back to the cow. "We could've gotten you a dog, Carrot…"

"IS THAT OFF THE TABLE NOW?!" She cried out in despair.

"Well, I zhink it is just delightful!" Baby cooed, clasping her hands together. "She is a beautiful creature, no? And I zhink she will be so happy here!"

"You think? I've never had to actually raise farm animals before, I just know how to cook 'em…" Sanji muttered.

Baby turned to Sanji and pecked him on the cheek. "Leave zhat to me, I know how to tend to cows! When I was a little girl, I spent my summers on a farm!"

Sanji swept her up in his arms and dipped her low, returning the kiss with a fervor that made her swoon and looked horribly obnoxious to everyone else. "Oh, I love dating a human swiss army knife! Is there anything you haven't done~?" he sang.

She blushed, grinning ear to ear. "I would say _you_ , but we have already accomplished zhat, no?"

"If you two are done being embarrassing, does this mean that we can… actually keep her?" Nami asked.

Sanji lifted Baby back up, although she remained swooned in her arms, leaning as far back as her spine would let her, one leg wrapped around Sanji's waist, and the back of her hand on her forehead like a southern belle with a case of the vapors. Her eyes popped open and, with as far back as she was leaning, she could still see Nami, albeit upside-down. "Oh, oui, oui! She will need a place to stay in during bad weazher, but zhe backyards, zhey should provide plenty of space for her to walk around! Zhere are no fences between zhe yards! And as long as we give her plenty of attention, she should stay happy and calm!"

"Then I guess she needs a name!" Carrot chirped.

Luffy and Ace both opened their mouths, to which Nami slapped her hand over Luffy's. "No! You two aren't naming the cow! If we let you idiots do it, she'll be called something dumb like Queen Laserkill or something!"

Ace awkwardly shut his mouth and let his shoulder sink, but only because he thought that name was cooler than the one he was going to suggest.

"Robin!" Nami called up to the balcony, hoping for backup, and still with one arm around Luffy and the other covering his mouth. "Cow name suggestions!"

Without missing a beat, Robin responded with "Macabrissa, Lady of the Dead and Dying."

"Alright then I'm on my own." She left the conversation to go follow the cow, Luffy and Carrot following right behind her.

Ace looked back to Sanji and Baby. Sanji's arms looked like they were getting tired, but Baby was in no mood to stop swooning. "Hey, more seriously, we do have a bit of a problem. I don't suppose either of you know anything about corpse disposal?" he asked jokingly.

"If you cut zhe body into pieces, it will decay faster."

"Burning the body is great for disposal in a hurry if you don't mind the bones being left behind."

Ace swallowed. "Uh. No, not… not like hiding a murder. I just meant that the beach leading to our boat is littered with bodies and if we ever plan on using that thing, we're going to need to clear the area out."

"Ohhhhh…" the duo said simultaneously.

"So you aren't trying to, y'know, hide a body," Sanji clarified. Ace nodded, dragging his hand down his face.

"Well, I can help you wizh zhat as well!" Baby chirped. "After all, I was a maid! I am used to cleaning up big messes! And I would be happy to burn some bodies wizh you!"

"Alright, I'll go talk with our pyro experts and we'll… see what we can do about it," Ace said. As he walked off to find Sabo and Koala, he glanced over at the crowd gathering around the cow, who was still plodding along everyone's backyards. Back home, Newgate had farming areas throughout the area of Rochester he'd secured. Of course Ace could go see chickens, cows, pigs, whenever he wanted. But he had never had a farm animal actually living in his own neighborhood.

Sabo and Koala were in their garage, straightening it up while Franky chased after the cow. They needed to make room for their own equipment, alongside his. The Frankeystein had to remain parked outside for the time being, and this was Ace's first time laying eyes on that as well. "And I thought our town had its share of weirdoes…" he muttered bemusedly.

"Aren't these guys great?!" Sabo said when he saw Ace walk into the garage. "We've been here for like, a day and I already love Franky. He's like the uncle I always wanted."

"Everyone here is so nice, I was worried they'd be suspicious of us or something…" Koala muttered. She looked out the garage, almost like she was afraid someone would hear her.

Ace waved a dismissive hand. "I know we were all a little nervous, considering… But look, this is already going great. Did you see we found a cow?!"

Sabo looked past Ace, as if he would see it in the garage. "Really?!"

"I told you man. This place is wild," Ace said, shrugging. "Anyway, I need your guys' help with a project. You busy for the rest of the day?"

"Not at all, what's up?" Sabo said.

"You guys wanna help me burn a bunch of bodies?"

Preparing to clear a beach of corpses was a little bit less good wholesome fun than preparing to go fishing, but there was still something entertaining about the idea. That primitive, chaotic part of everyone's brain that liked to see things be on fire. The pickup truck was unloaded of its fishing gear and instead loaded back up with shovels, rakes, kindling, and lighter fluid.

Luffy was eager to go back with them, but when he asked Nami if she wanted to join him, she laughed in his face. "No, sweetie, I'm gonna stay here. But you go have fun! And make sure you take a loooooong shower when you get back."

Luffy and Sabo climbed into the back of the truck with the supplies while the other four filled up the seats, and they headed back out to the beach. Koala, who was sitting next to Baby, looked her up and down. "Are you sure you're okay wearing that?"

Baby, who was still in her frilly maid attire, tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Is zhere somezhing questionable about it? I am going to clean up a mess, no? I should look zhe part of zhe maid!"

Koala could not argue with that.

Arriving back at the beach changed Baby's disposition, though. Along with Sanji, Sabo, and Koala. They had brought safety masks, goggles, and rubber gloves, but now they were wishing they had been able to bring hazmat suits.

"Alright! Yeah! I can see why this is a problem!" Sabo choked out, covering his mouth and nose with his hands. He fumbled through the supplies to find one of the masks, but it did little to actually keep the smell out.

"Oh this is just foul…" Koala gagged. "How could they let it get like this?!"

Baby swore, babbled and spit in French when the stench hit her nostrils. Her vision blurred as her eyes started watering up, which always happened when she was in distress. "Zhis… Zhis is why proper disposal is so important!"

As I mentioned earlier, taking guard duty was usually a gauntlet of boredom and vigilance. But for once, someone was happy to take it. While the other five got to work, Koala started her shift, watching from the roof of the truck for anything that might sneak up on them. She didn't last long up there, before one of the others needed a break and swapped roles with her. Guard duty tended to last around 20 minutes while they were on the beach.

Normally, disposing of zombies, while a pretty gruesome task, is pretty straightforward. Once you clear out an area, you gather the bodies in a pile, you pour something flammable on them, you light it up and you wait for it to die down. Then you put whatever's left somewhere you aren't going to be. Crude, morbid, but giving all those zombies a proper funeral would be far too time-consuming. Usually, you deal with corpses that have been walking around, preventing a lot of the stagnant decay from kicking in.

To helpfully illustrate what these poor saps are dealing with, I want you to just picture this in your head. At one point, Luffy and Ace had to hoist one body by gripping its arms and legs. The second they lifted up, the necrotized flesh around the limbs just peeled away. Pulled clean off the bone, leaving the brothers holding onto soggy flaps of dead skin and muscle.

And then there were the ones that bloated up in the saltwater and washed ashore. Big, bulging sacks of flesh full of all manner of stewing gasses. Moving them as they were was suicide. They had to be deflated from a distance. Shooting them would just be a waste of bullets, so instead Baby took to throwing a hunting knife at them. It "worked" in the sense that technically what they wanted is to see a human body erupt in a gutsplosion.

By the time it was all said and done, the primal desire to see something burn in general had been replaced with the vengeful desire to see something hated burn away. The sun had set, they were trapped in darkness, with only the fire illuminating the now relatively clean beach. Bonfires on the beach were supposed to be a sign of college kids on spring break, drinking and partying and some guy playing acoustic guitar, like in all the commercials for pickup trucks. There was none of that here. Just six young adults staring grimly at the inferno of bodies.

"This was the right thing to do," Sabo eventually said, breaking the silence.

"Was it, though?" Sanji asked.

"Yes. No? Maybe. I don't know. I just felt like we should've said something."

Sanji turned away from the fire, taking exhausted steps back to the truck. "I got something to say. Fuck 'em." He flicked his cigarette butt out of his fingers, prompting Baby to chase after him.

"HEY! Sanji! What do you zhink you are doing?! Pick zhat up!" She shouted, startling him. He turned around with a confused and somewhat intimidated look on his face. She pointed to the cigarette butt. "We spent all day cleaning zhis beach! Do not go around littering it again!"

It was firmly nighttime when they returned home, exhausted, burnt out, reeking of body waste and the foulest smoke imaginable. They parked the truck in front of Sabo and Koala's place and Ace sent the other three away. "I'm gonna stay and help 'em unload. I'll see you at home, Luffy."

"You sure? I can help!" Luffy asked.

"Nah, it's okay lil' bro. I gotta ask them some stuff anyway. You go home and get some sleep, dude."

Luffy, Sanji, and Baby had no complaints about this, shuffling to their respective homes. Baby and Sanji noticed the garage door to their house was open and the cow was currently laying on a stack of tarps. "I guess she lives here now?" Sanji muttered.

"I suppose our petit lapin decided on zhat for us?" They were both too tired to confront it for now. That would be a problem for Future Sanji and Future Baby.

While unloading the truck, Sabo chuckled. "Things we do for love, huh? I thought this was supposed to be a professional arrangement."

"I think professionalism went out the window the second Ace realized his brother lived here," Koala sneered playfully at him.

Ace held his hands up in defense. "Hey, hey, we can have it both ways! I know why we're here, trust me. I'm not going to let Luffy distract us from what's really important. Just consider it… motivation. Yeah."

"If you say so…" Sabo tried to sound like he was joking, but there was a hint of concern in his voice. "Still, we should've spoken up or something when we were assigning houses. I don't know if I trust Margaret to do her job."

Koala frowned at Sabo. "Wait, what? When has Margaret ever let us down?!"

"Never, in regards to hunting and killing. Getting her to be close to another human being? I don't know…"

"Guys, guys, guys!" Ace called out. "Hey, it doesn't matter! No rush, right? We want these guys to trust us? Remember? So don't worry about it! We're cool, everything's cool."

The lights were off in Luffy's house, which meant Nami had probably already gone to bed. He tried to be quiet as he entered the house, but the front door slipped from his hand while he moved to close it, causing it to slam shut instead. A light in the living room ahead clicked on and when Luffy walked into the room, he saw his girlfriend looking sleepy and disoriented. "Jeeze, finally… What time is it?"

Luffy shrugged. "I dunno, I don't wear a watch. Hey, why aren't you in bed?"

"I was waiting up for you! I didn't think you'd be out this late!" She yawned, rubbing at her eyes. "I must've fallen asleep-whoa! Easy!" She held a hand out to stop him from approaching. "Go clean yourself off, idiot! You better not have tracked anything walking in here, either!"

"I took my shoes off!" Luffy pouted, but then turned around to head upstairs to the bathroom.

Nami pulled herself off of the couch and called up after him. "So how did it go anyway? Get it all cleared up?"

"Yeah!" Luffy called from the top of the stairs. "It was totally gross, though!"

"I can only imagine… Hey, where's your brother, anyway?"

"Puttin' the stuff away at Franky's house!" He called back. "I think he had to talk to Sabo and Koala about somethin'!"

"Something they couldn't say in front of you?" Nami muttered mostly to herself. She didn't say anything more to him, but she stood in the stairway for a while, letting Luffy shower up.

She waited there a while, standing at the bottom of the stairs and looking over her shoulder at the front door. She was about to head up the stairs herself when it swung open again and Ace stepped in. "Oh, hey. Just talking about you."

"You're still up?" Ace asked.

She shrugged. "I was waiting for you two to get home. Everything cool? Luffy said you had to talk to some of your friends."

Ace's eyes widened a little. "What? Yeah, it's all fine. Just work stuff."

"Work stuff?" Nami repeated, an eyebrow cocked.

He waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, y'know… WEB stuff. I didn't want to hold Luffy up or anything." He could tell Nami was still staring at him. She didn't say anything else. "What?" He asked, an uneasy grin on his face. "You think I'm up to something devious?"

"I hardly know what you're up to at all, good or bad." She sighed and let her shoulders drop. "Sorry, I get paranoid about people sometimes. Luffy thought his whole family was dead, and you show up, alive and well? I categorize that as 'Too good to be true'."

Ace let out a long sigh. "Look, I was surprised as anyone, yeah? If I knew he was alive, no force on this earth could've stopped me from coming here."

"I guess miracles like that can happen." She laughed a little. "A while back we ran into Robin's ex-husband. That didn't go so well for us."

"You and Robin are close too, huh?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, absolutely. Luffy and I should tell you about how we all met. The three of us should hang out or something. Do something that doesn't involve dead bodies."

Ace laughed. "Yeah, definitely. I'm gonna… head to bed, though. Loooong day."

"Same here." She turned to head up the stairs, then stopped a few steps in. "And, look, sorry for being suspicious. I just… y'know. I don't want anything to hurt him."

"Preaching to the choir, Nami."

She smiled at him, then headed back upstairs. He leaned back against the door, crossing his arms in front of his chest. What he said wasn't a lie. He wasn't up to anything devious. It was the exact opposite as far as he was concerned. What he had planned would be a huge benefit to everyone. He just had to make sure they were ready to believe him when the time came...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

SPEAKING OF MARGARET, Robin and Perona still had no idea what to make of her. Edward's people had been settled in for over a week now and the goth duo were pretty sure Margaret had said less than seven words to them in that time. They found that offensive, because she was pretty talkative to other people in the outpost. For a relative definition of "talkative", that is.

She was barely a presence in the house, preferring to spend most of her time outside and away from the outpost. At her insistence, Franky had torn down the boards barricading the houses outside the walls, so that she could have better vantage points.

She refused to explain what she meant by "vantage points" at first, until the rest of the outpost actually saw it in action. From the upper windows of the houses, she was in the perfect spot to snipe out intruding zombies before they could get too close to the walls. It proved to be effective and it also proved to be a good way of keeping the others from getting to know her at all. Day in and day out, she would wake up, go up into a house, camp out there, then return when the sun set.

Margaret also oversaw the departure and arrival of the scavenge parties that started going out every so often. Having a crew of adventurers join the outpost inspired more frequent trips outside the walls just to see what was out there. They weren't expecting to find anything and often set out without a real destination in mind, but it helped give them a better estimate of what was out there and what could be coming.

It also meant the occasional shopping spree, when one of these scavenge parties found a store that had been left relatively untouched.

On this particular day, Coby, Bonney, and Franky were on their way home from a trip that helped them map more of the area out, but didn't come back with much in the way of loot. Bonney parked the van in front of the gate and honked the horn, which also drew in a zombie or two. One slapped its hands against the driver side window, then there was a harsh thunking sound as an arrow pierced its brain and it collapsed in a heap. Bonney rolled down the window and stuck her head out, raising a thumbs-up towards a nearby house. "THANKS, PEGS!"

She couldn't see the middle finger protruding from the window the arrow came from. "She likes me," Bonney said to her passengers as the gate slid open.

Robin and Vivi were there to greet the arrival, with Vivi throwing her arms around Coby as soon as he climbed out of the van. "Welcome home~!" she sang, pulling back to look him over. "Did everything go okay out there? You didn't get hurt at all?"

"Not at all, in fact we barely got out of the van!" Coby laughed. "Probably the safest excursion we've had in a while!"

Franky was a little less relieved about that, and Bonney seemed particularly agitated. "So it was basically pointless! A whole lot of driving around for fuckin' NOTHING!" she screeched.

"I wouldn't say it was necessarily pointless," Franky said, crossing his arms and shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, we got a super mapped route out of it. But yeah, most of the stores or whatever were already smashed in or crawling with dead. Not worth really looking into."

"So you didn't find anything of note?" Robin asked.

"Weeeeeeelll," Franky said dramatically, a smug smirk spreading across his face. "I wouldn't exactly say thaaaaaat. See, we found-"

Bonney cut him off by letting out a frustrated growl. "So there's this fuckin' mall out there?" Franky shut his mouth and his expression soured. "And I was like 'hey let's go check it out' you know? Like I'll bet there's fuckin' cool shit in there for us to take? And _these two assholes_ ," she gestured angrily to Coby and Franky, which caused Vivi to scowl at her. "Are like 'Nooooooo it's too dangerouuuusss it's gonna get daaaarrrk soooooon we should go baaaaaaack' fuckin' bullshit-ass bullshit."

Robin nodded at her the whole time she was ranting, waited until she was finished, then turned to Franky. "So you found a mall?"

"FUCK YOU ALL, I'M GOIN' HOME!" Bonney shrieked, stomping off to her house.

"Yeah, I figure someone could head out there first thing in the morning, y'know?" Franky said, ignoring her. "See what's up? Could be a treasure trove, could be a trap."

"Maybe I should go, then. If it's infested, I'd still be fine, wouldn't I?" Robin said.

Franky's eyebrows raised as he realized what she just said. "Hey, that's right! Why don't we send you out more often, huh"

She smiled. "Usually because I just don't want to go."

This time she did, though, and when Perona found out, she demanded to go too.

"You really want to go out and spend time with me?" Robin asked while she was setting out her equipment that night. She was confused, and a little flattered.

Perona scoffed. "I mean, I _guess_ , a little bit.. But mostly because, like, most malls usually have a Hot Topic? And I seriously need some new clothes."

Flattered feeling gone, Robin said "Well, I'd appreciate the company anyway. Should we invite Margaret?"

"What's the point? She's just gonna say no."

"But then we could still say we offered, thus making us the morally superior ones."

While they were discussing it, Margaret was making her return from her "watchtower" for the day. Once she passed the gate, she was intercepted by Tashigi.

"Hey, so Bonney just angrily informed me that your roommate and her are heading to a mall tomorrow?"

"Okay…" Margaret said. She tried walking away but Tashigi grabbed her wrist.

"Your roommate, Robin?" Tashigi insisted.

It took a little bit for it to click for Margaret. "Oh."

"You should probably go with them. Have you even tried talking to her since you moved in?"

"I'm not here to make friends."

Tashigi rolled her eyes. "And I'm not here to keep a cow wrangled until Franky can finish building her shed! But that's what I keep doing anyway! Go with Robin. Talk to her. Learn something about her."

".. Fine. I guess I'll go…" she said like a petulant teenager being scolded by her mom.

She headed back for her house and walked through the front door. Instead of immediately making a beeline for her room, she walked towards Robin's, where Perona had once been shit-talking Margaret, but immediately stopped when she heard the front door open. "Hey. You're heading out tomorrow?"

Robin and Perona stared wide-eyed at her, incredulous that Margaret was actually starting a conversation. "Uh. Yes. Myself, Bonney, and Perona."

"... I'm coming with you." Which caught them even further by surprise.

"Do you shop at Hot Topic too?!" Perona asked.

Margaret didn't know how to respond to that. "Look, if you don't want me to come, just say so, but-"

"No! We'd be happy to have you along. It'll be fun!" Robin said.

"Alright then. Just don't leave without me." With that, she turned around and headed back to the solitude of her own room, leaving Robin and Perona to wonder how the hell that all happened so easily.

They didn't leave without Margaret, but they were on the verge of leaving without Bonney. The next morning, they stood on her front porch, knocking on the door to see if she was ready to go. Tashigi answered the door. It was the middle of the morning, but it seemed she had been up and alert for hours already. "Are you all back already?"

"Back?" Perona asked.

"No, we haven't left yet. We're here to pick up Bonney? Is she not here?" Robin asked.

Tashigi thought for a moment, then the realization dawned on her. "Oh that lazy… Hold on." She marched to the basement stairs and stomped down them, to where Bonney was still dead to the world underneath a mountain of blankets."Bonney." No response. "Bonney!" Still nothing.

So Tashigi kicked the pile of blankets as hard as she could, sending the gluttonous lump underneath them rolling over to the edge of her bed. There was a sudden flailing underneath, and Bonney's head popped out, sitting up in a panic. "Wha-wha-whathefuck?!" She blinked until she could see Tashigi's outline in the dim light of the basement and grumbled before dropping back onto the bed. "Awwhh this is not what I fuckin' wanted when I think about wakin' up next to you."

"You think about…?" Tashigi trailed off.

"You're s'posed to have less clothes!"

"Okay," she rolled her eyes. "Anyway, get up. They're waiting for you outside."

Another grumble. "Who's waiting?"

"For the mall excursion? Robin, Margaret and… the other pink-haired girl?"

At that, Bonney flung herself out of bed. "OH SHIT! What time is it?!" she scurried around her room, pulling on whatever clothes happened to be strewn around.

"It's 9:30," Tashigi grumbled, covering her eyes at the shameless half-naked woman in front of her. "Do you have to do that?"

Bonney snorted laughing. "What, you don't like the show? First fuckin' thing you said to me was how hot I looked!"

"That wasn't what I-!" Bonney didn't let her finish before dashing up the stairs.

Bonney nearly tackled the other three women to the ground, racing out of the front door. "Alright let's go let's go let's go!"

Robin sidestepped the charging hooligan. "Finally. Alright, Bonney, you're riding shotgun with me. I'll need you to lead me there."

She froze in place. Slowly turning around to face Robin. "Wait, are you serious?"

" _I_ don't know where we're going. This is your trip. You do remember how to get there, right?"

Bonney suddenly felt the judgmental stares of three other women. "Y-yeah! Psh! What, you think I'm fuckin' stupid?" No one bothered to answer that. "I know where I'm goin'!"

As it turns out, she did not. Oh, the first few minutes, she seemed to know what to do, but one wrong turn and it fell apart. Unfortunately for the others, she did not let on that she had lost the route and instead, with full confidence, continued to lead them down wrong way after wrong way. Eventually, Margaret had to speak up. "There's no chance we're going the right way."

"Yeah we are! I know what I'm doing, blondie!" Bonney shouted, whirling around in the front seat to glare at her.

Margaret didn't look impressed. She gestured out the window. "We've been in a subdivision for like ten minutes. Last time I checked, malls aren't in subdivisions. You got us lost."

"It's a _shortcut_!" Bonney insisted. Margaret didn't buy it for a second. When she didn't get a response, she turned back in her seat and pointed at an upcoming street sign. "... Make a left here!"

"Alright," Robin said neutrally. She had a slight smile on her face, a trusting sort of expression that showed her full confidence in Bonney's directions.

Making the left turn led them straight to a dead end. Robin seemed completely unfazed, but Perona groaned dramatically and Margaret shrugged with a gesture that silently screamed "I told you so".

"This is how people get murdered, you know that?!" Perona grumbled. "The van's gonna break down and we're gonna get stuck wandering back on foot, and then we're gonna get ambushed by some family of creepy cannibal people."

No one seemed to acknowledge her very real and legitimate fear, so she added, "Who will _eat us_?!"

"No, we get it," Margaret said. "But I don't think _she_ does." She shot a pointed glare at the back of Bonney's head.

Bonney unbuckled her seatbelt and would've lunged right for Margaret if Robin hadn't grabbed the back of her shirt. "Settle down, girls, settle down. Everything's fine."

"How is everything fine?!" Margaret demanded. "This was such a waste of time, it's going to take forever to get back!" She had to dodge the furious and futile claw swipes from Bonney, still being held back by Robin.

Robin pulled on Bonney's shirt to get her to sit normally, and then spoke in a voice so calm, it was borderline condescending. "Bonney, can you admit you don't know the route as well as you thought?"

There was an uncomfortable silence as Bonney fumed like a child. "... Fine. Fuckin'... Okay, I got us lost! Alright?! We're fucking lost and it's my fault! You all fuckin' happy now!?"

"Glad we got _that_ cleared up! Now we can get eaten by cannibals with a clean conscience!" Perona groaned, slumping in her seat.

Now firmly in "mom mode", Robin pulled into a nearby driveway and turned around. "That wasn't so hard, was it? I'll take it from here."

The other girls stared at her. "Wait…" Margaret started.

Robin only smiled smugly. "Oh, Coby mapped out the route yesterday and gave it to me. I just wanted to see if Bonney was paying attention!" The groans of agony that tore through the van could be heard blocks away.

After that incident, the rest of the trip to the mall was smooth sailing. Robin rode the smugness high the entire way while the other girls sat in awkward silence. Her victory lap consisted of popping in a classical music CD and humming along for the majority of the drive.

The mall parking lot was packed for a place that hadn't had a customer in six years. And no, before you say anything, these four don't count as customers. They weren't going there to buy anything, they were going to steal. Like a foursome of contemporary Indiana Joneses… es…

Anyway, the parking lot still had a number of long-abandoned cars in its spaces, a few clusters of zombies wandering aimlessly around, but not in so high a number that it could be categorized as "infested". Just enough that it would be annoying, as Bonney so eloquently put it.

"Oh you fuckin'... Fuck, fuckin' stupid…" she rolled down her window, leaned out, and shouted "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU UNDEAD BASTARDS NEED TO GO TO A MALL FOR ANYWAY!? YOU FUCKS!" Which forced Robin to yank her back in before she called over a swarm.

"Well, girls, what do you want to do?" Robin asked, drumming her hands on the steering wheel. They were still circling the mall, trying to find the clearest entrance. There was one opening that had been barricaded with a line of cars, bumper to bumper in an attempt to block it off. Apparently whatever survivors planned on turning the mall into a fortress only got this far.

"If we stay close to you, we're fine, right?" Perona asked.

Margaret perked up, turning away from the window to look at Robin. "Is that how it works?"

Robin nodded. "That's right. As long as you stand close to me, they won't be able to sniff you out. It's not a guarantee, though, so still keep an eye out."

"Do you want us to hold hands?" Margaret asked sarcastically.

The four of them left the van holding hands and Margaret suddenly regretted everything she'd ever done in her life. It worked, though. The zombies barely acknowledged their presence, but everyone except Robin still had to wonder if the safety was worth feeling like children being chaperoned by their collective aunt. In fact, Perona even glanced over her shoulder at their mode of transportation, and realize how true it was.

As they scaled the car barrier, the foursome perched on the roof of an RV to scan the area. The area between the actual mall entrance and the makeshift wall was clear of zombies. It was an alleyway of sorts leading in, walls on either side kept safe by the barrier. The girls could press against the glass and peer inside to the mall's interior.

They could immediately see a smattering of zombies lurking around the concourse. Either the other entrances had been compromised somehow, or the survivors that holed up in here somehow succumbed to the virus. Either way, they couldn't get in and out cleanly. "What do you think?" Robin asked again, making sure everyone was down for looting time.

Perona narrowed her eyes. "I think I need some new clothes."

"Agreed." Margaret said. She tried the door and found it was locked. She turned around and headed back to the cars.

The others could see her trying door handles until she found a car with its doors unlocked. She climbed in and rooted around, before exiting and walking back with something in her hand. The car apparently had a pair of bolt cutters on the floor.

"Margaret, there isn't a chain on the door handles, it's locked from-" Robin started to say before Margaret pushed the other three to get back, then gripped the cutters with both hands and swung it at the door. It shattered on impact, glass crashing down in front of her. She gestured to the others to go in ahead of her, but they all remained still. Silently, they looked from her to the mall interior, then back to her. She got the hint and saw that the shattering glass had drawn the attention of a dozen or so zombies.

"Oh, what? They aren't coming near us, Robin's here."

Robin's voice was sharp as an exacto knife. "It only works if I don't _draw attention to myself_."

"Oh." Margaret shrugged, then pulled the bow off of her shoulder. "Alright, let's do this."

"300-But-With-Zombies" is a tried and true strategy. Zombies are stupid creatures and they'll keep charging forward without any regard to their own safety or whatever is in front of them. If you're dealing with an oncoming horde, you should try to find a cozy chokepoint and lock them down that way, provided you have the weapons and resources to hold a siege.

The only downside to this approach is that it's pretty easy to wear yourself out afterward. Especially if you go in underprepared or are rushed into it.

The girls had a pretty sizeable pile of bodies in the entrance when all was said and done. Once the commotion and zombies had died down, they were able to catch their breaths and glare at Margaret. She didn't seem _too_ bothered, but she did try to defend herself. "Okay… Look, I should've known there'd be more around the corners there, but seriously, that was not a lot. We handled that just fine. And hey, look at all the problems we don't have to deal with now!"

She had a point, technically. When they reholstered their guns, put their knives away, and stepped over the broken glass and bodies, the concourse was actually much clearer than they expected. They were able to study the directory in peace, Perona and Bonney scouring over it while Robin and Margaret kept watch.

"What do you see?" Robin called over her shoulder. There were a few zombies lurking around the nonfunctioning escalators, but they weren't paying the group any mind.

"I'm looking I'm looking!" Perona growled. "Lessee… Ooh! Hell yes! There _is_ a Hot Topic here!"

"You don't think any of the food'd be good here? What about the coffee or shit, y'know?" Bonney's eyes were scanning over the list of restaurants printed on directory kiosk.

"I highly doubt it," Margaret said.

"Shit… Uhhh… There's a place to get dvds and games and shit? Do we have consoles back home?"

"I've never thought to check. We could probably have one sent to us… What about a bookstore?" Robin asked.

Bonney bit her lip. "Uhhhh… Oh shit there's a Spencer's!"

"Not a bookstore."

"I don't see one, then."

Perona looked up from her side of the kiosk to stare at Bonney. "Yeah there is! There's a Barnes and Noble here!"

"They sell books? I thought they were like… a furniture store."

"Alright, looks like we all have a place to go. Margaret? Anywhere you want to go?" Robin asked.

"I don't really have a favorite store," she said.

"Your loss!" Perona chirped. "Okay!" She stood up and pointed down the concourse. "Let's move out!"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The convenient thing about raiding stores in malls is that there's really only one way an attack can come from. As long as you do a quick sweep of the store itself, check the back room, make sure nothing's hiding behind the shelves or clothes racks, you just need to station someone to watch the entrance while the others go looting. Margaret had no interest in Nirvana t-shirts and Invader Zim merchandise, so she stood at the entrance while the other three tore apart a poor, defenseless Hot Topic.

"Ooh CDs!" Bonney said, grabbing literally anything she could get her grubby hands on. She shoved them in the inner pockets of her coat. "Good thing those scanny thingies won't go off when we leave this time. Stupid mall cops always giving me shit. What, like stealing's a crime?" she muttered to herself. She did the same with the jewelry, pocketing an assortment of rings and earrings, whatever she thought looked even the slightest bit cool.

Perona was having a field day, though. When you're a Drama Kid, one of the biggest challenges is finding outfits that fit whatever theme you're going for. Gothic Punk Rock Lolita Hipster was a pretty specific fashion choice and her options were limited, so she took any chance she could to expand her wardrobe. Which is why her arms were full of clothes and the shelves were bare.

Robin looked over her shoulder and hummed in thought. "A problem arises. How are we supposed to carry everything we're going to loot?"

The pink-haired girls froze in place and looked down at the hauls they were expected to carry by hand. "Malls should have shopping carts…" Perona mumbled. They stored whatever they could in the leftover plastic shopping bags behind the store's counter and trekked back to the entrance to drop off haul number one.

"There's no way we're going to be able to fit all of this in the van," Robin said, somewhat bemused as they navigated to the next store in the mall.

"Whateveeerrrr we can come back and pick it up tomorrow or something!" Bonney groaned. "Why do you have to ruin everything, Robin?!"

She cheered up when she dragged the others to Spencer's. It was the kind of place a person like Bonney would adore. Loud, obnoxious, rude, and unapologetic. Spencer's was the kind of store that went out of its way to irritate you and Bonney _loved_ it. In fact, she was deliberately looking for things to take back that would piss her roommate off. There wasn't really anything specific that would send Zoro into a fury, but she figured a collection of gag gifts strewn around the house would build up over time and be hilarious to see.

Margaret stood watch again, but this time Robin joined her. They stood side by side, scanning the concourse for anything that might have caught a whiff of them. Robin eventually glanced over at Margaret. "You aren't having much fun here, are you?"

"Shopping trips aren't really my thing," Margaret muttered.

"And what is your thing?"

She bit her lip. She wasn't making eye contact with Robin at all, but seemed to find the floor pretty interesting. "I dunno. Archery."

"So you came out of the womb firing arrows? Is archery the thing you live for?"

"Whatever. It doesn't matter."

"How did you know about my immunity?"

That got Margaret's attention. The floor stopped being interesting and she snapped her head to stare wide-eyed at Robin, like she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"I mean, I never mentioned it to you. Because we never talk? So I was just wondering how you knew about it." Robin's tone was neutral, with just a pinch of accusatory.

Margaret's mouth hung open like she wanted to say something, but nothing came out for a few seconds. "I heard someone else mention it. Was it supposed to be a secret?"

"Not particularly, but it's probably something we could've talked about, if you bothered to speak up every once in a while. This is the longest conversation I think we've had."

"I guess."

Robin let out a frustrated sigh. "You're good at not committing, aren't you? Do you just not like me or Perona for some reason?"

"ALRIGHT! LET'S MOVE THE FUCK OUT!" Margaret was fortunately saved from answering by Bonney's shrieking announcement. She was bouncing giddily, her arms full of an assortment of props and gag gifts. She had roped Perona into picking up a few things too. They dropped those off at the entrance, along with the rest of their haul, and made tracks for the next store.

The furniture store came next on the list. It was one of those luxury places with high-end, fashionable furniture sets that cost thousands of dollars each. In total contrast, there were a few zombies lurking around that were quickly disposed of. There were telltale signs that people had been sleeping here. Blankets strewn about, a few suitcases full of supplies. Someone had tried to make a life here, and they failed. Most likely they were among the zombies that the group had just killed.

Perona found the ultimate proof of that. There was a king-sized bed set up for display with the comfiest, softest looking sheets imaginable. The bedframe had an old gothic-inspired design to it that immediately drew her attention. "This… _this_ is a bed for a princess!" She squealed. She flung back the covers, prepared to climb in and test it out for herself, only to discover that someone had once had the same idea. And they were still there, rotted to a near skeletal state, staining the sheets and mattress with all manner of bodily filth. There was no chance anyone was sleeping in that bed ever again.

She recoiled with a terrified yelp, then immediately whined out in despair. "AWWWWW that's so not faaaaiiiirr!"

Sadly, no one would be getting furniture that day. They had brought a van with them for this trip, and there was no conceivable way for them to fit any kind of large furniture in it. They stood around awkwardly, not wanting to be the one to flat-out admit that they were just window shopping. "We'll… We'll come back later," Robin eventually said, reassuringly.

Unfortunately for Robin, their last stop was the one most thoroughly picked clean. Fashionable clothes and bong-related merchandise were not in high demand during the initial weeks after Zombie Day. Well, they _were_ , but only to people who didn't last long. Books, though, were the most sought-after form of entertainment. They were portable, silent, and there were a ton of them available.

Not only that, but this Barnes and Noble had an exterior exit that had been compromised at some point, and thus there were more zombies than normal scattered about. "Fuck. Fuck. Sorry, Robin, that's real shitty…" Bonney said as they stood in the entrance from the concourse.

Robin just shook her head. "No, I'm not leaving just yet. I'll find something in here. They won't bother me. You two head back to the other entrance, wait for us there. Margaret, you're with me."

Margaret's head whipped towards Robin. "Excuse me?!"

"I need someone to watch my back, just in case. Not smart to go off alone, no matter what the circumstances. You all know that."

She rapidly looked between the girls and Robin. "W-well, I guess, but what about those two? Can't they cover you?"

Too late, Bonney and Perona were already walking away from the bookstore. "See ya at the van! We'll load all the stuff up!" Perona called out over her shoulder.

Robin glanced sideways at Margaret, grinning slyly. She knew that Margaret had no fear of zombies. She was nervous because Robin wanted a chance to continue the conversation from earlier. "Stick close, Margaret, and keep an eye out."

"... Fine…" She reluctantly followed behind Robin, like a kid who knew they were about to be scolded for something.

To Robin's delight, she let Margaret stew for a while. She quietly paced through the aisles, looking for anything that might catch her attention. Every so often, she'd hear the thwipping of Margaret loosing an arrow at something coming too close for comfort.

"So where were we?" Robin said, smiling when she heard Margaret's longsuffering groan. "Oh right. Did Perona or I do something to offend you? I could see her saying something, but I can't imagine what I could've done."

"Is this really the best time?" Margaret asked.

Robin didn't look up from the shelf she was crouching in front of, tracing her finger horizontally, scanning the titles. "Well, it's one of the few times we get to talk alone, so I'm taking advantage of it."

Margaret huffed. "You didn't do anything, I just… I'm not good at dealing with people, I guess."

"Join the club, we have awkward meetings every week-ooh alien romance," Robin said, pulling a book off the shelf. "I'm not good at dealing with people either. You've probably already figured out that Perona has a similar problem."

"She's pretty… abrasive, yeah."

"My point is, if I came off as hostile or dismissive of you, then I apologize. I'd like to get to know you, Margaret. You seem like a reliable person. Where did you learn all of those survival skills, anyway?"

"Oh. I just… spent a lot of time alone after Zombie Day. I lived in the woods by myself up in Canada for a few years, didn't really talk to a lot of people. Mr. Newgate's people found me while they were investigating something out there."

"You're from Canada? So am I!" Robin turned to smile at Margaret, making her tense up a little at the mere concept of friendly human interaction.

"O-oh! That's cool. How'd you end up here..?"

Robin led Margaret to another aisle. "Oh, it involves my immunity, but I think you might have already known that?" She turned around to see Margaret's shocked, confused expression.

"Wh-... What do you mean?"

"I mean, I know you've hardly talked to any of my people since you arrived. And I don't think any of them would mention my condition." She was calm, even smiling at Margaret while the blonde girl stewed in nervousness. "Oh relax, I don't really care that much. You heard it from someone I used to run with, right?"

Margaret swallowed. "Y-yeah. It was… Like, an urban legend up north…" she lied. "Sorry. I should've said something."

"Mmhm." Robin stood up, arms full of books. She led Margaret towards the sales counter area, where trendy hipster cloth tote bags had once been on sale, long ago. She dumped her haul into one of the bags. "For future reference, the key to actively starting a relationship is trust. It's probably the most important thing."

Margaret shifted nervously, not sure where the lecture was going, but sure she wasn't going to like it. "Okay…"

"You knew me, or you knew _of_ me, but didn't mention that. You were withholding information. Now, I don't care about that, because I've long since given up on figuring out that part of my life. But in another situation, I might decide that this means I can't trust you. I would like for us to be friends, Margaret. We're living together, and we ought to get to know each other." Robin stomped the heel of her boot into the skull of a legless zombie slowly crawling in her direction behind the counter. "And your people seem nice, and I would like for my people to get along with them. But we can't do that if there's no trust between us, do you understand?"

"Y-yeah…?"

Robin nodded, smiling. "Good. Because if, for instance, you were withholding some important information, something that my people would be angry about not knowing, then that would hurt everyone, wouldn't it? Newgate's people, Bellemere's people, and Hancock's people."

"I don't… That's not… No, we're not… hiding anything," she lied "... bad…" she truthed.

"Good!" Robin seemed content to drop it at that. "Glad we could clear that up! Margaret, I think you and I should spend more time together." They started off back towards the entrance they first entered the mall through. "What do you say I join you tomorrow when you go to your… sniper nest? We wouldn't have to talk much, I could use a nice, quiet place to get started on these." She bounced the bag she was carrying.

"That would be pretty cool, yeah…" Margaret said. "I'd like to hang out and stuff."

"See? We're already getting along." She hummed while they walked back to the entrance, taking her time, it seemed. "So if you did know about me, why _didn't_ you bring it up earlier?"

Margaret floundered for a response, "Uh, well, to be honest? You're kind of intimidating. I didn't want to say the wrong thing."

Robin looked over at her with genuine confusion. "Intimidating? Howso?"

"Well, for one thing, you tricked all of us earlier today. You let Bonney get us lost and then revealed you knew where you were going the entire time? And you managed to pull out the fact that I knew you because I didn't react to something. Were… Were you testing me?"

"Not at all. I'm just observant. And I like to have fun."

"It just feels like you're on the lookout for me to slip up and reveal something dangerous…" Margaret said.

"But you already told me you don't have anything dangerous to reveal. Here." Robin stepped forward and turned around to face Margaret dead-on. She raised her right hand like she were standing trial and placed her left hand behind her back. "I swear on my good name, that I shall never use my powers of deduction for evil."

Margaret leaned to the side to see around Robin. "Are your fingers crossed back there?"

Robin chuckled. "Now you're getting it!"

That wasn't an answer, and Margaret could tell that's exactly how Robin wanted it to be. "You're… An odd person, Nico Robin."

"No one has ever said that to me ever in my entire life."

The two of them met back up with Perona and Bonney at the corpse party entrance, who seemed bored out of their minds with waiting. "Finally! What, did you read all the books before you picked 'em up?!" Perona groaned, slumping against the wall dramatically.

"Oh hush. Did you get everything loaded up?" Robin asked.

"Yeah. Also made it less of a shitshow past the barrier thingie. Are we going?" Bonney tapped her foot impatiently.

Robin rolled her eyes as she walked past. "You were itching to get here, now you're itching to leave? Where's the consistency?"

"Fuck off, I wanna get home and set up my new shit!" Bonney yelled after her. It occurred to Margaret in that moment, that she was not being singled out by Robin. Robin bothered everyone. That was her nature.

She took solace in that fact. There was a sense of camaraderie in knowing that she was not a deliberate target, and that Robin's ability to needle people was more of an AOE attack. The drive home was far less eventful, far less arguing involved. And to Perona's surprise, Margaret didn't immediately disappear into her room when the trio finally returned home.

"What did you do? You broke our loner hunter badass," Perona said when she got Robin alone later that night.

Robin just shrugged. "We had a chat at the bookstore, that's all. It turns out, she was just shy."

"So she wasn't brooding or angsting over lost love or anything like that? She was just… an introvert?"

"Sorry, Perona," Robin said, patting the younger girl's head. "The world exists to crush your expectations."

In case you were wondering, Bonney's plan worked like a God damn charm. Zoro woke up the morning after their trip to the mall to find that the house had been transformed overnight into an unironic meme hell. Imagine, if you will, waking up and walking through what you once thought was your house, only to discover the walls mounted with singing bass fish and posters of attractive women and/or messages supporting the use of marijuana recreationally. Imagine finding your lamps were all replaced with lava lamps or plasma globes. Imagine a fog machine in your kitchen for no discernable reason.

Zoro attempted to remove most of it. Tashigi helped occasionally. However, whatever they would clear away would end up replaced with a similar product, and the swordfighting duo had no idea where the merchandise was coming from. Bonney refused to cough up answers. After three futile days of trying to get their house back to normal, Zoro and Tashigi had absolutely had enough. Something had to be done about her if they were ever going to have some semblance of control in their lives again.

Zoro and Tashigi waited until she left the house for whatever reason before enacting their plan. Well, step one of the plan was to come up _with_ the plan, but at least they could focus. Zoro quickly locked the front door, and Tashigi the back door to make sure she couldn't come back in. "Alright, what are we going to do about all this?" Tashigi said, hastily shuffling back to the den where Zoro was pacing back and forth.

"We need to make a statement about it. Something she can't avoid."

Tashigi was lost in thought for a moment, then muttered "Y'know… I had an ex once, and after I found out they cheated on me, I dumped all their stuff on the front lawn and yelled at them from a window."

Zoro's eyebrows raised, not only at how good of an idea that was, but how surprised he was that Tashigi was capable of doing something like that. "I'm impressed, that's a good idea."

Tashigi pushed up her glasses in a smug anime character way. "Let's get started."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

A second story window was flung open and one by one, a barrage of tacky knick knacks rained down like a waterfall of crap. A pair of fake plastic boobs caught the wind and blew over the wall somewhere. A beanbag chair shaped like a dick bounced off the front porch's overhang and landed next to the steps upward. Several packages of straws shaped like penises fluttered to the ground like awkward confetti. A dildo thicker than a Coke can that was, mercifully, still sealed in its box made an audible thunk when it hit the driveway. It was an unnerving sound to hear considering the context.

Now, it's not like Bonney went anywhere out of the outpost. She only went over to the storage house to find some toothpaste, so she learned quickly what was going on. It was Perona who brought it to her attention, shouting down the stairs to the basement where Bonney was going through the unorganized mess of supplies. "HEY! DID YOU DO SOMETHING TO TICK OFF YOUR ROOMMATES?"

"NO MORE THAN USUAL, WHY?" Bonney shouted back up.

"BECAUSE THEY'RE THROWING ALL YOUR STUFF ON THE FRONT LAWN!"

"WHAT?! I never told them they could do that!" She cried out, dashing back up the stairs. She bounded down the steps of the front porch and approached the house just in time to see a blow-up doll gracelessly drift down from the window onto the grass.

By now, a small crowd had gathered, either curious to see where this was going to go, or irritated at the display. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" Bonney screeched. "THIS IS ALL MY SHIT!"

"SHIT IS RIGHT!" Tashigi yelled from the upper window.

"WE'RE GETTING RID OF ALL OF IT!" Zoro yelled as well.

Bonney stomped up to the front door and jiggled the handle, finding it locked. Her brain didn't register the locked part and she braced her foot on the doorframe to try and rip it off the hinges. "STOP IT! LET ME IN THE FUCKING HOUSE! YOU GUYS ARE SUCH ASSHOLES!" She had to stomp back to the driveway so she could actually see them and argue.

"YOU'RE THE ASSHOLE!" Zoro yelled. "ALL YOU DO IS PISS US OFF!"

"What the hell is going on here? I was enjoying my day of nothing stupid happening," Law grumbled as he approached the growing scene.

"Look like a bad breakup," Nami muttered.

"Wait, were they dating?! No one told me!" Luffy exclaimed.

"SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!" Bonney shrieked to the crowd. "JUST-! GO BACK HOME OR SOMETHING LEMME DEAL WITH THIS!"

Nami stifled a laugh. "No way, this is hilarious."

Bonney was about to shout something else when a box labeled "Industrial-Strength Condoms" smacked her in the back of her head. From up above, Tashigi could be heard letting out a surprised cackle.

"Nice shot, four-eyes!" Zoro cheered.

"YOU TWO CAN GO FUCK YOURSELVES!" Bonney shrieked.

By this point, Vivi and Baby were approaching, looking pretty miffed themselves. "Hey! Could all of you keep it down?! You're starting to upset Lucy!" They had the cow in tow, and all three girls were adorned in flower crowns. Yes I'm including the cow. And yeah, Nami had named her Lucy, on the basis that she always wanted to give that name to a daughter, but owning a cow would be the closest Nami actually wanted to get to having kids.

Lucy didn't appear distressed, but to be fair, no one there could really tell what an upset cow looked like. Bonney ignored the crowd as best she could. "COME ON! LET ME IN, QUIT BEING DICKS ABOUT EVERYTHING!"

Baby bent down to pick up an errant package of disposable shot glasses bearing cartoon genitalia. "What is going on here? Where did you get all of zhis?"

"That's my totally awesome loot I got from the mall we raided a few days ago! And these assholes are throwing it away! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS!"

"IT'S THE ONLY WAY SHE'LL LEARN! WE HAVE TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE!" Zoro shouted to justify their actions.

Law looked at the crowns on the girls and raised an eyebrow. "What were you two doing?"

"Playing with the cow," Vivi said.

At this point, Franky approached from the same direction Baby and Vivi came from, also adorned in a decorative flower crown. "And what were _you_ doing?" Law asked.

"Working on getting the cow a pen to sleep in so she don't gotta stay in the garage anymore. And playing with the cow." He surveyed the situation, then held his hands up. "Alright, alright! Why don't we all just take a deep breath and bring it down a few notches, yeah? You're all gettin' super worked up over nothing!"

Of course, by then, Zoro was already in mid-throw of one of the many lava lamps still strewn around the house. He threw it out the window, letting it fall short of actually hitting anyone. However, that just meant it instead hit the hood of the pickup truck in the driveway, which caused it to shatter, and then furthermore activate the car alarm.

The clanging alarm threw everything into a shitfrenzy. Lucy mooed and bellowed, thrashing around to get away from the sudden noise while the crowd covered their ears. Zoro and Tashigi dashed downstairs to find the keyfob that matched that particular truck. Ace, who had been keeping an eye out on guard duty, called out to the others that the commotion was "DRAWING A CROWD SO SHUT IT OFF NOW!"

Getting the alarm shut off was simple enough, and getting Lucy to calm down took the combined efforts of Baby and Vivi. While they were working on that, enough time had passed to draw in well over a dozen zombies who were banging and clawing at the walls. Not enough to pose a serious threat to structural integrity, but enough to be a huge annoyance that needed to go away.

All in all, by the time the situation was again under control, the trio's house was still littered with embarrassing gifts, the outer walls were littered with corpses that needed to be cleared away, and most of the outpost was pretty pissed at Zoro, Bonney, and Tashigi. It got to the point where Franky had the trio gathered in his living room so he could properly scold them like the dad he was. They were sitting nervously on the couch while he stood up in front of them, arms crossed.

"So… anyone wanna tell me exactly what happened out there?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"I didn't start it!" All three of them shouted at once, which just made Franky groan.

"I didn't ask who started it, I asked what happened."

Tashigi raised her hand. "If I may, sir, Bonney has been nothing but trouble ever since she got back from that trip to the mall. Every day, she's just been a huge bother! Zoro and I just… reached our limits with her!"

Bonney recoiled, genuinely offended. "If you didn't like it, you could've said something!"

"WE DID! MULTIPLE TIMES!"

"Alright alright, bring it down," Franky leaned forward to pull them apart.

Zoro leaned away from the other two and let out a longsuffering sigh. "I'm getting sick of this."

"Pretty clear to me that the three of you should try talkin' instead of causing a super big scene. When was the last time the three of you had a real conversation that didn't end in yellin'?"

They looked at each other and shrugged. "I think Tashigi and I talked about swords for a bit…" Zoro muttered.

Bonney gasped, scandalized. "You two are talking?! Oh that's such bullshit! How could you betray me like that?!"

"Oh shut up! I'm allowed to have a fucking conversation!" Zoro shouted back.

"OKAY OKAY THAT'S IT!" Franky pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look. Here's what we're going to do. I got a job that needs doing." All three of them groaned like children. "I need more lumber for Lucy's pen. Now there's a Home Depot they were using for supplies while they were building these walls, and it should still be pretty stocked up. So take one of the trucks, go load it up, and come back. Easy stuff."

"Is this our punishment for causing a ruckus?" Tashigi muttered.

"YES!" Franky said. "And also it's a chance for you three to have a chat and try to work things out. Y'know, a cooperation exercise." He walked away and bent over the nearby dining room table to scribble out a shopping list as well as some easy-to-follow directions to get there. He handed it to Tashigi. "Here, get everything you can on this list, then come on back."

The trio regarded the list with disdain while Franky tapped his foot. "Now!" he said. "Go now!"

They scrambled to get a truck ready, the same truck that now had a big dent in the hood from the thrown lava lamp, and pulled out of the outpost. Franky and Baby were there to see them off.

"Do you zhink zhis will work?" she asked.

Franky just shrugged. "At the very least, it gets 'em outta our hair for a little while. It'll be an easy job, that place is still super cleared out. I think they just needed to get outta the outpost for a little while."

"Mmh…" She suddenly bit her lower lip. "Was it just me or did you see zhat Zoro was driving?"

Franky tried to recall the recent memory of the trio leaving, reimagining it in his head. "... Ah crap."

Five minutes later, we now join our screaming match already in progress.

"-I TOLD YOU TO TURN LEFT-"

"-YOU DID NOT I ASKED IF I SHOULD TURN LEFT AND YOU SAID RIGHT-"

"-WHICH MEANT CORRECT YOU DUMBASS-"

"-WELL YOU SHOULD'VE SAID THAT-"

"-WHO CARES YOU STILL FUCKED UP-"

"-SIT THE HELL DOWN-"

"-YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TURN-"

"-I'M FOLLOWING EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID-"

"-IF YOU WERE WE WOULDN'T BE HERE DAMN IT-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!" and then everyone shut up. Zoro looked out the window, drumming angrily on the steering wheel, Tashigi fumed in the passenger seat, bringing her knees to her chest, and Bonney laid down in the back seat with her feet pressed against the window.

"Alright. I think I know where we are. I just… need to back up to that last intersection and turn right."

"TURN LEFT! Because we're coming from the OTHER direction!" Tashigi snapped.

"I-I KNOW! I know! That's what I MEANT! I know what I'm doing!"

"Mom, Dad, stop fiiiightiiiiiiing…" Bonney droned out sarcastically as Zoro pulled a U-turn.

The shouting didn't really die off even as Tashigi guided Zoro to backtrack and go on the correct route. Mostly because, even when Tashigi spoke slowly, clearly, and provided instructions that could not possibly be misconstrued in any way, he still managed to fuck it up.

Bonney was unusually quiet throughout it, just staring up from her position lying in the back. When they were finally on track, the Home Depot in sight, Tashigi looked back at her. "Hey, you… okay?"

"I've been carsick for like a half hour."

"Well, we're almost there. And you should probably not lay like that if you're carsick."

"Shut up you're not my mom…" she muttered.

It was something of a dark mercy that Bonney felt so sick, as it meant the trio as a whole was significantly quieter and calmer than they'd been all day. Zoro parked in front of the Home Depot and surveyed the immediate area. There were a few zombie bodies strewn about, and a few still walking around the parking lot, but it did look relatively clear and danger free. He glanced at the list Franky provided. "Alright, let's get this over with."

"I'mma stay in the car…" Bonney moaned. Tashigi nodded her head, reaching into the back to shake her by the shoulder.

"No you're not. Just get out of the car and walk around, you'll feel better."

"That sounds fake," Bonney said, but she climbed out anyway. She hung back while the swordsmen pushed open the sliding doors.

The store was basically empty, not even the sound of gurgling or moaning echoing through the open aisleways. It was threat-free, as far as they could tell from an initial scan from the entranceway. Fortunately the lumber was directly in front of them. "Alright, we're gonna need a stack of two-by-fours, some plywood sheets…" Zoro read off the list. "Insulation, screws… nails…"

"Yeah, I don't know where any of that would be," Bonney said.

"I don't either. Just stay close, we'll go one aisle at a time if we have to…" Zoro walked to a nearby orange flatbed cart and pulled it towards the lumber aisle. The cart naturally squealed and rumbled as its wheels rubbed against rusted metal, creating a cacophony of noise that echoed through the store. The piercing sound made all three of them wince. He halted his movement and the trio listened carefully for the sound of any groaning that might have been called to attention.

"I guess this place really is empty," Tashigi noted when nothing came for them. They got to work loading the cart with as many planks as they could, still occasionally glancing over their shoulders for a possible threat. Bonney did start feeling better, but wished she hadn't, because then she couldn't use her sickness as an excuse to not do heavy lifting.

They had loaded perhaps more than the cart should've been able to carry, with Zoro and Tashigi trying to push it forward while Bonney guided it, when somewhere else in the store, there arose such a clatter, the trio sprang to attention to see what was the matter.

Their flashlights out as they snuck through the rest of the store. There were no signs of zombies just yet, keeping a constant vigilance. Traveling with three was a good way to keep an eye on all possible directions, especially in a place like this. "Hey! You were right!" Bonney chirped quietly. "My stomach does feel better!"

"Real happy for you, sweetie," Tashigi whispered back. "Stay quiet."

They heard another commotion as they approached the opposite corner of the store, where they shelved light bulbs. It didn't sound like the strained, raspy breath of an undead soul. It sounded more like someone muttering quietly to themselves. The flashlights went off, Zoro and Tashigi drew their swords as quietly as possible. Then they rounded the corner in a flash, blades pointing at whoever was lurking about.

They couldn't make out his appearance in the dark, just a figure crouched over a shelf of light bulbs still in their boxes. "Now do the numbers mean…? Higher means brighter, yes? Oh why couldn't they send someone else, I don't know…"

Their badass confrontational pose ruined, Tashigi cleared her throat. In an instant, their target lifted his leg, higher than most people would be able to, and kicked her square in the nose. She flew backwards into Bonney's arms, knocking both of them to the ground. Zoro drew his second sword, preparing to slice the guy's head off, when it appeared their attacker's instincts wore off and he realized the situation. He leapt back, throwing his hands up in surrender. "WAIT WAIT WAAAIIIIT~!"

Zoro kept the swords drawn on him, but didn't lunge forward at all. Bonney helped Tashigi sit up while she adjusted her glasses. Thankfully they weren't broken, but when she grabbed her nose, she winced and felt blood. "You jagass! You broke by dose!"

"W-w-well what were you doing, sneaking up on a person like that?!" The mysterious man stammered, almost in a sort of singsongy voice. "I thought you were a zombie~! What else was I supposed to do~? And you!" He gestured to Zoro. "You're pointing a sword at me! Now what kind of first impression is that?!"

"We thought YOU were a zombie! Or a bad guy or fuckin SOMETHING! What are you doing lurking around here?!" Bonney yelled.

"By the looks of things, I was getting supplies, same as you! Ohh forget all this. Can't we start over? I'd rather not continue being so hostile~!" He looked down at Tashigi, still sitting on Bonney. "Are you alright, dear?"

"She's clearly fuckin' not!" Bonney yelled.

Tashigi only grumbled, trying to wipe the stream of blood away from her face. "Ogay baybe id's dot brogen, bud id sdill hurds…" She withdrew her flashlight again to first check for the blood dripping onto her shirt, then she shined it on their mystery man.

They had seen Drama Kids before. Hell, Zoro and Bonney's empress was a Drama Kid. But they had never seen one quite so flamboyant as this. He looked like a ballerina combined with a stripper. His face was caked with makeup in a way so extravagant that it had to be intentionally over the top. His powerful legs and thighs were exposed in the fishnet tights he was wearing, along with the booty shorts he had over them. He was wearing ballerina flats that were adorned almost comically with stuffed swan heads. Not real swan heads that were stuffed, fake ones. He wasn't a _freak_ or anything. "Well, thank you for the spotlight, dear! Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Bentham, but you can call me by my stage name, BON CLAAAAYYY~!"

Zoro hesitantly lowered his swords and sheathed them. But he still took a step back. It didn't go unnoticed, and Bon Clay closed the gap between them in a flash. "And who are you, my handsome, mysterious swordsman~?" He was unnervingly close.

"Z-Zoro. And please leave my personal space."

Bon Clay reluctantly pulled away, turning his attention on the ladies who were shakily getting back to their feet. "And you two lovely ladies?"

"Dashigi… Ad dis is Boddey," Tashigi muttered, pinching her nose to stop the blood flow.

Bonney stifled a laugh. "Say my name again! That was fucking hilarious!" She only received a death glare in response.

"Tashigi, I am so terribly sorry for what I did~ Let me make it up to you! Have you all ever heard of a little place called… Impel Down?"

The trio stood silently, glancing amongst themselves, confused. "What's… Impel Down?" Bonney asked.

"Sounds like a prison…" Zoro muttered.

Bon Clay grinned coyly. "Why it's most certainly not a prison! The exact opposite! It's a place for true freedom of expression! An institute with no rules! No barriers! All are equal, all are deserving of love!"

"Brothel, got it." Bonney said, snapping her fingers.

"Boddey! Dat's rude!" Tashigi scolded her.

Bon Clay shrugged. "Impel Down can serve as that, if you're interested~! Free love, free care, freedom to be exactly who and what you want to be~! We believe that, in these trying times, men, women, those inbetween, all deserve a chance to truly express themselves!" He studied the trio for a moment. "You three look like you could use a vacation from all this horror, hm? A chance to live a little? Party it up, as the kids say?"

"Whad bakes you thigk we deed a breag?" Tashigi had managed to stem most of the bloodflow at this point, but her hand and the front of her shirt were still covered in it.

"Well, I mean look at you." Bon Clay said plainly. He waited for it to sink in. "The three of you all look downright exhausted, irritable, drained, pale, tense… And then there's me~!" He pointed to himself with a smug, wide grin. "The pinnacle of youthful vigor! Why, I haven't felt stressed in years, thanks to Impel Down!"

"I'm not really interested in relationships. We're gonna pass on that." Zoro started to turn away, gesturing for the girls to follow him.

"But are you interested in… barrel-aged home-brewed whiskey~?" Bon Clay called out. That stopped Zoro in his tracks. He slowly peeked over his shoulder. "That got your attention, eh?" Bon twirled like a ballerina towards Zoro, and ended up throwing an arm over his shoulders. "We have plenty to drink at Impel Down! And really," he glanced over at the girls, finally frowning for the first time. It was just as dramatic as his normal gaping grin. "I feel _so terrible_ about hurting you." The grin returned, but this time it felt a bit more… sinister. Suspicious. "I insist you let me make it up to you~!"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"... Saaaaayyy…" Bonney said, stepping away from Tashigi to confront Bon Clay head on. "Wait a minute… How can we trust you? How the fuck can we trust anything this guy is saying?"

"Thagk you for catching ub with the rest ob us," Tashigi deadpanned.

Bon Clay gasped, pressing his hands on his cheeks in shock. "You don't-! Oh! Of course, of course! Such an offer, you would naturally believe it was a trap! Fortunately, I have a way to earn your…. TRUST!" he emphasized that last word by leaning back and raising one leg in a high point ballerina kick.

Tashigi sniffled, sending blood down the back of her throat. She shivered in disgust, drawing the flashlight away from Bon Clay. When she corrected her hand, they were surprised to see he was holding a small stack of Polaroids. From where he produced them, they had no idea.

"Here, here, gather 'round!" He beckoned them to draw closer, which they did, hesitatingly. The Polaroids were of a two-story building stylized like an old western saloon. They could tell by the surroundings that it was between two other businesses, but they couldn't tell what services they would provide. To prove that they were recent pictures, the Polaroids also featured Bon Clay himself, posing flamboyantly in front of the saloon entrance. Some of them also featured him posing with fresh zombie kills, like some kind of mixture of a gay pride parade and a hunter of the most dangerous game: _man_.

He was also in the interior pictures, showing that it was a regular, classy, themed saloon-style bar. People were drinking merrily, performers were in the background playing music, and it was all only partially obscured by Bon Clay's grinning mug. "Are you in all of these?" Zoro asked.

"Are you saying I'm not photogenic~?" Bon Clay responded. "So? What do you think? How does a night of merriment sound? It would be free of charge, of course."

The offer was becoming more and more tempting with each passing moment. The trio looked nervously at each other. "We should ged all that wood back…" Tashigi muttered.

"... We could just say we got held up somewhere overnight… Zombies pinned us down, we had to wait for them to clear out…" Zoro muttered.

As Bon Clay leaned in more and more, his smile widened. It looked like he was winning, until finally Tashigi let her shoulders sink. "Alright, alright, we'll go for a liddle bit! Because you owe me!"

They were swept up in a hug from a man who didn't know what personal space meant. "You won't be disappointed~! Do wait out in front of the store, I'll pull around and you can follow mee~ I'm so excited, I'm so excited!" He skipped, twirled, and leapt away, back into the darkness, leaving them standing there stunned.

"This is a good idea, right?" Bonney asked.

Zoro just shrugged. "I've had worse."

Bon Clay drove a pink convertible that looked like a Barbie toy brought to life. No one was surprised to see it pull around the front of the Home Depot, nor were they surprised when Beyonce started blaring from the sound system at deafening levels. "FOLLOW MEEEEE~~" Bon Clay sang, gesturing at them to come along for the journey.

Tashigi wisely snatched the keys away from Zoro before he could climb into the driver's seat, and she pulled out of the parking lot, hot on Bon Clay's heels. Even if they did get separated somehow, it would be pretty easy to find him again, with the stereo as loud as it was. Clearly this man had no fear, and was to be respected.

The sun was still up by the time they arrived at Impel Down. It was a relatively short drive, but further out than anyone from Little Garden had driven. The exterior looked much the same as it did in the photographs, but they could just barely hear some kind of commotion inside. They parked near Bon Clay, who leapt gracefully out of his car to greet them. "We're a bit early for the actual party, but you're all still welcome to come in and meet everyone! We're getting set up now~"

He walked the trio to the front door, opening it to welcome them in. Zoro and Bonney crossed the entrance, but he stopped Tashigi. "Except you, dear~ You're simply not presentable in that state!" he pointed to her bloodstained shirt.

"And whose fault is that?"

"Mine, of course! That's why I insist you come around to the back so I can get you into something more presentable~!" He wouldn't take no for an answer, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her around the corner, into the alley between Impel Down and a building that once was used as an attorney's office. Zoro and Bonney made an attempt to go after her, but were quickly tugged further inside when mystery people grabbed their arms while they weren't looking.

The interior of the bar was fairly lively, even if it was primarily populated by "staff". And it was easy to tell the staff from the guests, because they were all dressed similarly to Bon Clay. Feather boas, fishnet stockings, tight pants, vests, sequins, flamboyant jewelry, makeup, the works. Bonney and Zoro were lead further in by two men at the door, pushing them

"Ohhhhh, it's a burlesque show," Zoro said, nodding at the stage. "Now it makes sense."

"Burlesque… Oh yeah! They're like fuckin'… fancy strippers, right? This'll be better than I thought!" Bonney immediately perked up.

Zoro's shoulders sank as he looked around the rest of the bar. In true saloon fashion, there was a staircase on the right wall leading up to a second floor with a number of private rooms. The bar was to the left of the doors, and there were tables scattered everywhere else in front of the stage. "Not exactly, it's more of a performance than eroticism but… yeah sure, fancy strippers."

He then had a bottle smashed over his head and was tackled to the ground.

Meanwhile, Tashigi was dragged through a back entrance, through a hallway behind the stage where the dressing rooms were. A number of pretty girls in lace and stockings and garters were in the middle of getting ready for tonight's show. Also, there were handsome men in lace and stockings and garters, getting ready for tonight's show.

Blushing profusely, Tashigi was tossed into a private dressing room where an older woman was leaning against the wall. "Hello Shakky~~~! Do me a favor and make this one sparkle! She deserves it~!" Bon Clay said, before spinning away and leaving Tashigi alone with the woman.

Shakky (or at least Tashigi assumed she was Shakky) pushed herself off the wall and studied Tashigi up and down. "Hmm… Are you a new dancer for tonight?"

"Whaa!?" came Tashigi's high-pitched, squeaking yelp.

"The burlesque show. I've never seen you around."

Tashigi's eyes went wide. "No! No no no no no! Absolutely not, I'm not a dancer! I think there's been a mistake, because that is 100% what I'm not here for!"

"Okay…" Shakky nodded, taken aback at the outburst.

"I just want it to be clear. Absolutely clear that I'm not going to get into some kind of situation where I end up on stage and make a fool of myself. I just want a new shirt! I don't know what that Bon Clay guy was thinking!"

Shakky just shrugged, unfazed. "Sure, sure, honey. Although, I'll just come out and say it, I think you need more than a new shirt."

Tashigi raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean…?"

"I mean, you look like you haven't slept in 36 hours and you're clutching your sword like you're waiting for me to come at you with a knife. And your left hand has been balled into a fist since you walked in here."

"I'm just… tense."

"There's tense and there's on the verge of a heart attack. Come inside. We'll get you into some better clothes and some real makeup and you can tell Aunt Shakky what's bothering you." She crossed the room past Tashigi and leaned out the doorframe. She called out to whoever was listening, "HEY! TELL MY HUSBAND TO BRING US A BOTTLE OF VODKA!"

Tashigi leaned backwards down the hallway to see a girl scamper off to alert whoever Shakky's husband was. She turned back to Shakky, who was gesturing for her to look through the rack of costumes hanging along the back wall of the dressing room. "Go pick out something cute."

She walked towards the rack, but looked over her shoulder at Shakky. "I don't really do… fashion."

"I can tell. Just find something you like, I'll handle the rest."

Tashigi pouted at the older woman, but started flipping through the sequined and feathered outfits anyway.

Meanwhile, Zoro's vision was starting to return and he found himself face-down on the floor with another human being sitting on his back. "Thought I recognized you! Hey, buddy! Been a while, huh?"

"Who the fuck is this, Zoro? Who the fuck are you?!" That was Bonney's voice, being as helpful as ever.

"Small world, huh? Who'd've thought we'd be in the same bar at the same time? How long's it been, ten years? You look good!"

"Did you break a bottle over my head?" Zoro grumbled.

"Pffft," the voice scoffed. "Of course not! It didn't break."

"WHO IS THIS WOMAN?!" Bonney shrieked. "AND WHY DOES SHE LOOK JUST LIKE TASHIGI?!"

At that, Zoro tried to push himself up and the massive size of his huge and manly muscles meant he was able to lift himself even with the added weight of a grown woman. The woman sitting on his back toppled off, collapsing onto the floor and quickly righting herself. When he stood up, he squinted as he looked at her, trying to place why she felt so familiar.

She did look a lot like Tashigi. Their hair was the same color, and she even held a katana at her side, but she didn't wear glasses and her hair was kept much shorter. She also carried herself completely differently, looking far more laid-back and carefree than their swordswoman associate.

It didn't hit him until she smiled, grinning ear to ear and saying nothing. That's when he gasped and yelled out "KUINA!"

"ZOROOO!" she yelled back with equal excitement, as if she was just seeing him for the first time, and hadn't tried to knock him unconscious. "I'm surprised you're still alive after all this time, if your reflexes are that bad!"

"Zombies usually don't come at me with glass bottles…" he muttered.

"Okay okay okay OKAY! Who! The fuck! Is this!?" Bonney butted her way into the conversation.

Zoro groaned, having momentarily forgotten Bonney was there. "Bonney, this is Kuina. She was a friend of mine back when we were kids." He looked back at Kuina. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again after I moved. How'd you get down here?!"

"Oh, after Zombie Day, I just up and started wandering, you know? I didn't feel comfortable settling down anywhere, so I just walk the earth, go where my sword takes me. Yesterday it happened to take me here. And today it's taking me to the bar, where I am going to drink you under the table," she said, poking Zoro in the chest.

"What! Zoro! How come you never told me you knew a fuckin' party animal like her! I always thought you were too boring for that shit!" Bonney exclaimed.

"For one thing, we're not close enough friends for me to share my life with you. For another, Kuina never acted like that when we were kids. I seem to remember you being a perfectionist who had to be dragged outside to have fun."

"The end of the world happened. Suddenly getting into a good college stopped being important, and well I uh… heh! Didn't take it too well? I was angry for a long time, violent for a long time... And eventually I just decided to say 'fuck it' and do whatever I wanted! It's freeing…" She said wistfully. "So here I am! Drinking and partying and getting into fights! Like you used to do!" She again jabbed Zoro in the chest with her finger.

Bonney could barely maintain her glee. "You are MY kind of girl! Let's go get fucking PLASTERED!"

Kuina pulled the duo to the bar and leaned over the counter to shout at the bartender. "HEY! HEY! RAYLEIGH! OLD-TIMER! YO, WHISKEY! LEAVE THE BOTTLE!"

The bartender, a bearded old man with tiny spectacles, walked slowly to their end of the counter. "Oh, Kuina. I take it you're staying another night after all?" he said, deliberately taking his time to tease the new patrons. When he dropped off the bottle, Zoro and Bonney made note of how massively ripped he was for an old guy.

He walked off to tend to other patrons, waving over his shoulder. "Don't get too hammered before the show, you guys! You won't enjoy it as much!"

Zoro and Bonney went from staring at him to staring at Kuina. "Who is that guy?!" Bonney demanded.

Kuina shrugged nonchalantly as she opened the whiskey bottle and took a long swig, passing it to Zoro afterward. "Eh, he owns the place. Him and his wife. They're cool people."

Zoro took a drink from the bottle and passed it to Bonney. "We can't fuckin' tell the others about this place," Bonney said before gulping whiskey down. "This is our secret, got it?"

"Agreed."

At that moment, Bon Clay strolled up behind them and slapped Zoro on the back. He leaned over Zoro's back as if they were old friends. "Hello~! Glad to see you're enjoying yourselves! Your dear Tashigi will be out in a moment, and I have a feeling she'll look and feel so much better~! I left her in wondrously capable hands~"

"Okay cool-" Zoro started to say, but Bon Clay was already twirling away to greet other guests. "That guy is weird…"

Kuina snickered. "Yeah no kidding, huh?"

Meanwhile, Tashigi was starting to feel the buzz after her third shot of straight homemade vodka. She had ditched the tropical shirt and mom jeans for a classy, yet sexy red burlesque ensemble. The corset, the tights, the heels, the gloves. Her hair had been, to use the scientific term, floofed up to maximum levels, and she was currently lounging back on the couch in the dressing room. "What gets me, more than anything? No accountability. They don't…" she paused to stifle a hiccup. "They don't have a leader there! No one's in charge! I _had_ to throw all her stuff out the window, because it was the only way I could communicate with her!"

"Sounds to me, they think they don't need one," Shakky said. She was leaning against the wall, grinning bemusedly at her young new friend.

"They just decide things arbitrarily! We're supposed to be… representatives of our community! The outpost is the… the cornerstone of this alliance! We have a duty! Responsibility! We joined this alliance for a reason!"

"You mentioned that earlier. What was that reason again?"

Tashigi shot a slightly hazy, pouty glare at Shakky. "It's a good cause! It's not a bad thing! It's just… complicated! I just wish… everyone would take more responsibility. I feel like I'm the only one who cares."

"It sounds to me that you're trying to take on responsibility that isn't there. If no one else sees a problem with the setup they have going, why should it bother you?"

"Because there's no civilization without order!"

"Well, from what you told me, they sound pretty rambunctious, spontaneous… But have they really caused any trouble?"

"Well-!" Tashi thought about it. "N-no…" In fact, the only real trouble that had happened in the weeks since she arrived… was her and Zoro's fault in the first place. "It just feels weird when someone isn't in charge."

"If everyone's already cooperating, there doesn't really need to be a leader. That's how we run things. My husband and I own the bar, but we don't really need to do any management. You shouldn't try to control too much. Take it easy, it's the end of the world after all."

She then gestured to the door with her thumb. "Now I'm gonna need you to clear out, I still got my own work to do. Go party with your friends and enjoy the show. And try to make an effort to actually interact with them."

Tashigi suddenly sat up. "O-oh! Wait, y-you mean dressed like this?" She gestured to her outfit.

"Of course. What, did you think this was just fun dress-up time? What's the point of wearing that if no one's gonna see it?"

By the time she snuck her way back out into the bar, the place was filling up with its evening crowd. The sun was setting through the windows and people were taking their seats, ordering drinks, talking amongst themselves. It was difficult to find Zoro and Bonney in the crowds, since their green and pink hair didn't stand out as much amongst everyone else, but eventually she found them sitting in a half-circle booth near the front of the stage.

To her surprise, both of them cheered when they saw her. Even the other mystery woman cheered. "Holy shiiiiiiit!" Bonney cackled. "You look so fuckin' hot!"

"I-It's just what I'm wearing while they wash my other clothes!" Tashigi laughed awkwardly.

"Well, you should keep it! Good look for you! OH!" Bonney suddenly turned to the mystery girl. "This is her! Tashigi! Your doppelganger!" She gestured for Tashigi to sit down, "Sit next to her, go on! And take your glasses off!"

Tashigi shuffled and pushed her floofy dress under the table and let the mystery girl bump shoulder to shoulder with her. They glanced over at each other and Tashigi was momentarily completely confused. "Uh who-"

"Glasses! Off!" Bonney shouted, leaning dramatically over the table. Tashigi complied, and when she did so, Zoro sat up at attention to stare at both of them.

"Shit, they do look exactly alike…" He muttered.

While Bonney laughed like a hyena at the sight, Tashigi looked over at the mystery woman. "Sorry, who are you?"

"Kuina. I'm Zoro's friend and apparently your evil clone. Nice to meetcha!" She reached awkwardly to give Tashigi's hand a vigorous shake, and then stood up as much as she could from the table to shout for another round. "AND SOMETHING EDIBLE, I DON'T CARE WHAT!" she added.

It's amazing what a change of environment can do for people. Within minutes, the trio were talking with each other more freely than they ever had before. To Tashigi's surprise, Bonney was actually making her laugh, instead of roll her eyes, and Zoro hadn't felt so relaxed while also being awake in months.

The relative peace of the evening wasn't meant to last, but even that didn't bother them. As they continued drinking, the lights in the bar eventually dimmed and the spotlights shone on the stage. The nightly performance was about to start, which drew the foursome's attention and quieted them a bit.

Bon Clay appeared on stage, welcoming newcomers to Impel Down, welcoming back returning guests. It seemed the man did not have an off switch, because he was just as… gratingly enthusiastic as he had been when he met the group earlier in the day. He set the stage for the dancers, and as the performance was just getting underway, Zoro felt a tap on his shoulder.

"Scuse me, you four… Could I ask you something real quick?" It was the old man, Rayleigh, from before. The foursome gave him a quick glance to acknowledge his presence, then went back to the show to indicate where their priorities were. "Alright, I'll get right to it. One of my scouts reported that there's a bit of a… cluster coming our way. Nothing our people can't handle, but I figured a bunch of swordsmen like yourselves might be interested in helping out."

Zoro was suddenly more interested in what Rayleigh had to say than the beautiful women onstage. Not that he ever had much interest in women in the first place. "Hold on… You spend all day helping me get completely toasted and now you want me to go out and help your people kill off some zombies?"

"If you wouldn't mind," Rayleigh said.

"I fuckin' love this place."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

As Zoro stood up from the booth, he glanced down at the trio of ladies. "Anyone wanna join me?" He asked.

Bonney, who already had her arm around Kuina's shoulders and was using her to help her stay upright, shook her head violently. "Fuuuuuuck no I ain't missing this!"

"Yeah man, you go handle that, we'll be right here when you get back!" Kuina agreed.

Tashigi scooted her way out of the booth, though. "I'll go with you! Probably should have… someone watching your back, right?" she said, remembering what Shakky told her about actually socializing. Killing things seemed to be a good way to socialize with Zoro, at least. "Is it okay if I wear this? Or should I change?" she asked Rayleigh.

Rayleigh took a quick look at her and shrugged. "Eh, it's red. It'll be fine."

Bonney and Kuina almost seemed to be glad they were walking away. "HAVE FUN YOU TWO!"

"WE'LL SEE YOU WHEN YOU GET BACK!" they called out. And then immediately set back to watching the show and laughing at each other.

As for Zoro and Tashigi, they met up with the rest of Rayleigh's enforcers on a street near Impel Down. One look at them, and Tashigi didn't feel so awkward wearing her floofy dress. They too were wearing tights and high heels, some in tutus, some in combat jackets, some in both. They were all wearing body armor and heavy assault rifles, but hey, they made it fucking work.

The swarm that eventually approached out of the darkness was a dense clump of walking dead. Not quite a horde, but bigger than a normal cluster. Zoro and Tashigi hung back while the enforcers unloaded their clips. Bodies hit the floor like a Drowning Pool song, and when they were out of ammo, a heavyset man, muscular man with heavier makeup and a gorgeous sequined dress told them, "Alright, you two go and clean up the rest."

There were around two dozen left still shambling, some with limbs hanging limply from their bodies after catching a few bullets. Zoro wanted to take his time with the remainder. He approached slowly and took a casual swing at the closest zombie, slicing open its stomach to let its organs fall out.

"What are you doing?!" Tashigi shouted, beheading a zombie that was about to lunge at Zoro. "Don't mess around with these things!"

"I know what I'm doing," Zoro chuckled. He kicked the leaky zombie to the ground and stabbed it through the skull. "I'm just having a little fun."

"Fun? Zombie killing isn't fun!" Tashigi protested. She sliced the top of one's head off and let it crumple before her.

Zoro glanced over his shoulder to grin at her. "Sure it is, why do you think we keep score in the first place? Unless you're one of those boring types who doesn't bother to play, like Law."

Tashigi flinched at the accusation. "I-I play! I just… forget to keep score sometimes!"

"Booooooriiiiiiing," he said, slicing the arms off a zombie and stabbing his sword through its open mouth, twisting the blade to sever the spinal cord. "So do you just reset it whenever you realize you've forgotten?"

"No! I just- I continue where I left off! Stop making fun of me!" She fumed at him. They were having such a good time earlier, but the minute they're alone and not drinking, he's back to causing her trouble.

Zoro chuckled, covering for her by slicing the throat of one slowly approaching her from behind. "It's trash talk, that's all. Just banter. C'mon, try to keep up."

"Keep up! The way you just charge in like that, I'd have to be crazy to want to 'keep up'! You fight like a caveman! Katanas are meant for finesse and discipline, you know that, right? If you want to just swing a big metal bar, get a pipe."

"Katanas are meant to look cool and cleave through things easily. As long as I can do that, I don't need 'finesse'." He thrust both blades into a zombie's torso and swung outward, taking chunks of flesh with it. Supported literally only by its spine, the upper part of the torso tilted and fell to the ground, snapping the rotten bone along the way.

Tashigi slashed one from shoulder to hip, slicing diagonally and watching the top half slide off cleanly. "Are you saying I don't look cool?"

Zoro glanced over his shoulder again, grinning. "You're wearing a lacy dress, a corset, heels, swinging a sword at zombies. So… Actually, you do look pretty cool."

Tashigi smiled back at him, but he was already looking away. Still, she felt a little better about being around him after that. They made quick work of the remaining zombies, and then stuck around with the enforcers while they investigated the surrounding area. The enforcers were content to let the swordsmen duo take care of any token few lurking around, rather than waste the bullets. Plus, it was fun watching them snipe back and forth at each other.

Once Tashigi started to get a better grasp on the flow, she was able to keep up with Zoro's banter. She could evenly divide her attention between disposing of zombies and studying him to find things to needle him on. And he was always on top of his game to snipe right back at her. The more they worked together, the more they discovered that nothing was off-limits and soon they were communicating entirely in snappy insults, much to the entertainment of the enforcers around them. Despite the biting commentary, they were still all smiles the whole time.

Of course, someone eventually had to speak up. "You two would make a cute couple~" an enforcer hummed out loud. Tashigi and Zoro looked at each other and the grins vanished.

"You ruined it," Tashigi said.

"We had a thing going here and you ruined it," Zoro continued. "Thanks, pal."

"I-I just thought-" the enforcer stammered.

"Nope! It's gone now! I think we're done here." Zoro threw his hands up and walked in the direction he thought Impel Down was. Tashigi had to grab his arm and pull him in the correct direction.

"You guys can handle it from here!" she called out over her shoulder. They sulked back to Impel Down together. "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

"Glad we're in agreement. As far as I'm concerned, no one's hooking up with anyone while we're here."

By the time they got back to Impel Down, the show was over and the patrons had turned back into a regular party. These were the types of folks who didn't care for the strict regulations of the human-made clock or the nature-made rising and setting of the moon. Parties lasted as long as they wanted, and damn the planet's rotation for telling them otherwise.

Bonney and Kuina were absent from the booth when they got back, and Zoro and Tashigi couldn't see their companions in the crowd either. "They better not have wandered off…" Zoro muttered as they shuffled through the crowd. They weren't at the bar, they weren't sitting at a table, they weren't dancing onstage, they weren't outside with the smokers (because even in the post-apocalypse you have to be respectful of smoking regulations in private establishments).

Eventually Tashigi managed to flag down Shakky while she was mingling amongst the patrons and asked if she'd seen her doppelganger. "Just missed 'em, sweetie," she said. "Guess they had enough of the party and headed up to sleep it off. The way they were going, I had a feeling they'd burn out early."

"Early? It's almost two in the morning…" Tashigi muttered.

"Yeah. Early."

The two of them stayed up a little while longer, drinking more and getting back into the swing of picking on each other. They eventually stumbled their way upstairs to pass out, and even sharing a room was met with only minimal awkwardness. Thankfully, this room had two beds. The evening passed without any incident.

The next morning, or rather, whatever the hell time it was when they all got up, found Zoro standing in front of the door Shakky pointed out Bonney and Kuina went into. He knocked on it, still rubbing the sleep from his eye. "Hey. C'mon. We gotta get back so we can load the truck up like we said we would. Bonney. You can sleep on the drive there, c'mon."

When he didn't get a response, he slowly opened the door and was nearly floored at the simultaneous cries of "SHUT THE DOOR!" from both women. It was too late, though. He had already seen them both in the same bed, neither of them wearing clothes, and Kuina's arms clearly wrapped around Bonney's shoulders.

"Alright," is all he said as he closed the door behind him.

Tashigi approached him. "Are they awake?"

"Yep. They'll be down shortly."

Suffice to say, there was an air of discomfort amongst the four when Bonney and Kuina finally met the others at the truck. "So, are you coming with us, Kuina?" Zoro asked, leaning against the door.

"Uhhhhh… Aheheh, no, no I'm still… Gonna do my own thing…" she glanced awkwardly at Bonney. "But, y'know, I'll come back here every so often, if you want to… uh. Y'know." It looked like she was about to go in for a hug, but both she and Bonney decided against it. "Well… see ya around!"

The awkwardness persisted when the three of them drove off, back to Home Depot. Tashigi was behind the wheel, occasionally glancing over at Bonney, who looked rather fidgety. Eventually Zoro kicked the back of her seat to get her attention. "Don't get so down, Bonney. You'll see her again. That doesn't have to be a one-night stand."

"YOU WHAT?!" Tashigi shrieked, slamming on the brakes.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Bonney pouted. Tashigi left well enough alone, even while they loaded up the truck and drove back home. As soon as they cleared the gate, Bonney stomped off toward the house, ignoring Franky, who was there to greet them and help unload.

"What kept you guys?" he asked.

Tashigi and Zoro exchanged a quick look. "We got pinned down for the night. _Zoro_ made a wrong turn and we had to camp out in a house. That's all." Zoro shot Tashigi a dirty look, and they waited, anticipating further inquiry, but Franky just shrugged.

"Ah jeeze, sorry about that. Glad you're all okay." He chuckled. "Looks like you all cooled off, though! Fire forged friends, yeah?"

They grimaced and then quickly brushed it off. "Yeah, something like that. Here, we'll give you a hand with this stuff," Zoro said hastily.

While they were moving the lumber to Sanji, Baby, and Carrot's backyard, where the pen was going, Tashigi leaned in to whisper to Zoro, "So they really slept together? And that doesn't bother you?"

Zoro shrugged as much as he could while hauling 2x4's. "I'm not their dad, they can do whatever they want. I'm disappointed in Kuina's taste, though. I thought she was better than that."

By the next day, life had returned to normal and everyone in Little Garden was back to going about their routine business. Margaret and Robin snuck away to their usual sniper nest, Franky was working on the pen, Law was giving Vivi a checkup, and Luffy was busy shoving Nami out the door impatiently.

"Come on come on come on come onnnnnnn!" he insisted, leading her towards a pickup truck.

She tried to push back, laughing. "Luffy! The boat's not going anywhere! We don't have to rush!"

"Yes it is! It's going to go out into the ocean if we _hurry up and get there_!" Luffy had been waiting for this day for weeks now. Ever since the beach was cleaned up, the plan to actually go on a fishing trip had been up in the air, just waiting to come down. Finally, they had a day where the sun was out and there were no other major plans going on. Luffy had been dying for a day like today. He was actually the first one awake in the outpost, scrambling around the house to get things ready.

Ace was already waiting by the truck, just as eager to get going, but far cooler about the whole thing. "Yeah, Nami. If we wait any longer, the sun's going to set," he said, it being 9:00 in the morning.

In direct contrast to his chill, Carrot was busy running circles in a blonde blur around the truck, babbling incoherently about how today was finally the day. "I'M GONNA CATCH THE BIGGEST FISH, AND SANJI'S GONNA COOK IT AND IT'S GONNA TASTE GREAT AND EVERYONE'S GONNA BE HAPPY AND-urk!" She came to an abrupt halt when Ace grabbed her by the back of her shirt collar.

"Need to settle down, kiddo. Remember, you gotta be quiet and still while you're fishing."

Carrot fussed and squirmed out of Ace's grip. "No duh! That's why I'm burning off all my energy now!"

Ace's eyebrows popped up and he nodded. "Fair enough." He turned to Luffy and Nami. "Who're we waiting on?"

Nami pinched the bridge of her nose. "Zoro, who else? He only wants to go on the trip so he can sleep in the boat, and of course he's oversleeping now."

By the time Zoro did emerge, Carrot had circled the outpost twice, brushed the cow, brushed Franky's hair with the cow brush, and drew a comic about Zoro sleeping on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. Luffy had checked and double-checked all the supplies loaded into the truck, attempted to do a front flip off the tailgate, and was quickly dissuaded from doing a front flip by his girlfriend. All of this took around ten minutes.

"Were you waiting long?" Is all he said before climbing into the bed of the truck, graciously letting the other four get actual seats.

Ace took the driver's seat with Carrot riding shotgun. As they pulled out of the outpost and waved in the direction they _thought_ Margaret was in this morning, Ace ran down the checklist of supplies.

"Gas."

"Check."

"Poles."

"Check."

"Food."

"Check."

"Fresh water."

"Check!"

"Bait."

"Check!"

"Boat keys."

"Right here!" Luffy patted his pocket.

Ace slowed down the car to look back at his little brother. "Damn. I don't believe it. Luffy actually prepared for something."

Nami elbowed Luffy in the side and leaned back against his chest. "I know right?" She said as if she weren't using him to support her weight. "It's like he's a responsible human being!"

"Aw, come on!" Luffy pouted. "I know how to plan for stuff! I can think things through!"

"Of course you can," Nami said, leaning up to kiss him before settling back down. "You're reliable when it matters."

In stark contrast to the last time they were there, the beach was clear of undead and clear of the stench that came with them. The only sign of its previous state was the pile of blackened, charred bones that had been left behind from the zombie bonfire.

The SS Oceanfucker, a name that still made Nami grimace when she saw it, was a standard ocean fishing boat. It had an upper deck area with recliners and a canopy, with an enclosed wheelhouse beneath it. It didn't seem imposing enough to warrant the name "Oceanfucker", but that's what it was christened.

Ace and Carrot had sailing experience, something that came with being part of the WEB and today the waters seemed easy enough to sail without much issue. It wasn't like they were going out very far anyway. They loaded up the boat and Ace took the helm, leading them away from the docks and the dry land, out to the sea, where nothing but blue and more blue awaited.

Once they were far enough out, they got about setting themselves up. Luffy stationed himself at the very front of the boat, throwing his line directly ahead, with Zoro and Nami setting up directly behind him, casting out port and starboard respectively. Wait. No. Starboard and port respectively. Yeah. That's right. Starboard's on the right. Anyway, Ace and Carrot set up in the rear. But don't get the wrong idea, it's not like the boat was big enough that everyone was far apart from each other.

Once the rods were secured, everyone officially entered the Waiting Mode. Carrot paced back and forth around the boat, climbing up to the upper deck, leaning over the railing to peer out at the horizon. "When do the fish show up?" she asked.

"Guess they aren't awake yet," Ace mused, which earned him a dirty look from Carrot. "Just be patient. Didn't burn off all your energy already? Take it easy, kiddo."

Luffy eventually got bored of staring at the waves and sat down, leaning back until his head strategically dropped into Nami's lap. Staring up at the bright blue sky while she ran her fingers through his hair was more enjoyable than watching the waves. Zoro sat down too, letting Nami lean against his back for support. "It's quiet," Luffy finally said when he realized that particular truth.

The other four looked around, and noticed just how right he was. Even Carrot managed to stop her fidgeting. "Yeah…" Nami said. "I can't remember the last time anything had ever felt so… quiet."

"It's because there's nothing here to attack us," Zoro grunted. He gestured out to the ocean. "We're out here, exposed, nothing to hide behind, but I'll bet none of you are scared, huh?"

That was it, really. For six years, they had lived in one of two ways. Either they were constantly around people in civilized areas or they were alone with the potential threat of being devoured at a moment's notice. But here on the water, there was no way for any zombie to sneak up on them. There were no other people around, either. It was an isolating experience, but absolutely relaxing. Like being the only person in a sauna.

Even with nothing happening for a long time, none of them seemed to mind being idle for once. Carrot managed to calm herself down when she fished a snack out of the cooler and scampered up to the upper deck to eat it in peace. With her vantage point, she was the first one to notice the object in the distance headed their way. She leaned dangerously far over the railing and squinted, trying to focus on whatever it was. She couldn't tell much, but she could tell it was getting bigger. "Ship. SHIP! THERE'S A SHIP COMING OUR WAY!"

Ace was the first to scramble up the ladder to join Carrot, while Luffy sat up from where he was resting, to let Nami stand up. Without her to support him, Zoro fell backwards, having drifted off to sleep moments ago. Everyone save Zoro gathered up top to see what was coming.

As it drew closer, they could see it was a luxury yacht. A large one, much bigger than the Oceanfucker, and therefore far more deserving of the name. Especially due to the nasty looking decor they could make out as it raced towards them. Barbed wire wrapped around the rails, skulls both drawn and actual real ones (or decorative, it was hard to tell) on the hull. Even without the obvious black flag flapping in the wind, it wasn't hard to determine this was an actual pirate vessel.

Ace leapt down from the upper deck and dashed into the wheelhouse, just in the process of getting the ship started up again when a voice rang out over a megaphone.

"DON'T BOTHER TRYIN' TA SAIL AWAY NOW! BLACKBEARD'S PIRATES WOULD LIKE A WORD WITH YE!"


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ace stepped away from the wheel slowly, looking out the window at the pirate vessel coming to a stop in front of the Oceanfucker. Everyone save Zoro, who was still somehow asleep, gathered on the lower deck. Above them on the pirate ship, were a group of truly ugly, nasty looking guys that just screamed "pirate". Not the store-brand pirate, either. These guys were decked out in leather coats, tunics, heavy jewelry, and oh yeah plenty of high-powered firearms.

There was a giant of a man among them, and as he was standing front and center, it appeared he was the captain.. His beard was scraggly and unkempt, his hair greasy and tangled, teeth missing, and the coat he was wearing was bursting around his stomach. To his right was a pirate holding a sniper rifle, resting against his shoulder. He was abnormally thin and tall, incomplete contrast to the captain, and he was dressed like a foppish dandy as opposed to the other pirates.

"Ye lot've found yerselves in a real spot of trouble, eh? These waters don't belong to ye," the captain snarled. "They belong to CAPTAIN BLACKBEARD!" At the announcement of his name, the rest of the crew onboard cheered.

"Blackbeard…?" Ace muttered.

"Oh for crying out loud," Nami dragged her hand down her face. "I'm not dealing with another trespassing incident. What was it Vivi said last time this happened? PARLAY!"

The pirates were caught off-guard by that outburst, quietly muttering amongst themselves. Eventually the captain laughed in a hoarse, wheezing voice. "Zehahahaha! Ye know of parlay then, lass?"

Nami just waved dismissively. "Yeah, it's pirate code, it means that all threatening actions come to an end and we can't continue until an agreement's been reached. I had a friend teach me about that."

"Well, there be one minor problem with that," Blackbeard said. "We didn't come here ta threaten ye. We already came to negotiate. So by invokin' parlay, ye seem ta be threatenin' us. Therefore, we'll be respondin' in kind." With a gesture of his hand, the lanky sniper unshouldered his rifle and pointed it at our heroes. The red dot of the laser scope traveled slowly across each of them, back and forth. They froze up immediately, Nami tilting her head just enough to see Zoro stirring awake out of the corner of her eye.

"Now, if any of ye make a sudden movement, well I can't guarantee it won't end bloody!" Blackbeard cackled again. "Now, allow me to explain how this works. Y'see, trespassin' in these waters comes at a high penalty. It'll cost ye a fair tribute fer disgracin' my sacred sea. Yer supplies. I'll be takin' 'em. All of 'em."

"Like hell you will!" Luffy protested, tensing up visibly. The dot traveled straight to his chest, and Nami had to throw a hand out to hold him back.

The air was thick with tension, and it seemed the sniper was about to pull the trigger, when suddenly Zoro's voice rang out from behind, sleepily and muffled. "What the hell is goin' on here?"

That seemed to relieve the tension, at least a little. Blackbeard bowed condescendingly. "So nice of ye ta join us. Why don't ye gather with yer friends over there? Or rather…" He stroked his beard, which would've looked better if it weren't so patchy. "Why don't ye all come up here, so we don't have ta shout back and forth?" Not so much a suggestion as it was an order. One of the pirates even helpfully lowered a rope ladder off the side of the ship.

"Think we're good down here," Ace said.

"Dinnae if ye understand hierarchy, lad. The one with the guns gives the orders, savvy?" Blackbeard said through a teeth-gritting smile.

"I don't suppose you have a gun hidden away…" Nami whispered to Ace.

"It's by the cooler," Ace whispered back.

"Perfect." Nami sighed. "Alright, alright, we're coming up. Stop sweeping that gun over us already! We get the fucking point…"

Luffy's eyes widened in surprise. "Wha- Seriously?!"

She nudged Luffy with her arm. "They have us here. We'll just give up the supplies and we'll be done. No big deal, we have plenty."

"Sure is a lotta whisperin' and not a lotta climbin' up!" Blackbeard said, tapping his foot. There really was no point in delaying the inevitable. One by one, they scaled the ladder, only to be surrounded by a greedy horde of unwashed pirates.

"This really is a lot of work for a cooler full of snacks and beer. Would've been smarter to wait until _after_ we caught some fish, don't you think?" Nami said.

The pirates burst out into hearty laughter. Blackbeard even wiped a tear from his eye. "Ye think this is about what ye have yer ship? No, lass! No, I want more th'n that. Yer settlement owes us tribute."

Nami swallowed heavily. "Settlement? What makes you think we live anywhere? We're nomads."

"Issat so? All ye have in life is a boat, a cooler, an' the clothes on yer backs?" Blackbeard turned his attention to Ace. "That so, lad?" he asked pointedly.

Ace's expression didn't change. "That's all we have."

He repeated the question to Zoro, who also nodded in the affirmative. "Don't need anything else." Carrot also confirmed that they didn't have a place to call home. It was when their attention was drawn to Luffy that everyone's hearts froze in place.

He tried his hardest, he really did. But Nami knew that the kid could not lie to literally save his life. His eyes couldn't stay locked onto Blackbeard and his voice trailed off when he said "Nope, we don't have a place to call home…"

Blackbeard tsked, shaking his head mournfully. "Y'almost had me convinced…" He put a hand on Luffy's shoulder, then pulled back with the other and knocked the wind out of the poor kid with a straight shot to the stomach. Luffy doubled over and collapsed to the ground.

"LUFFY!" Nami cried out. The guns that were suddenly pointed in her direction kept her from rushing to his side. Ace's hands balled tight into fists and he scanned the crowd for a weakness, not finding anything.

"So where is yer camp?" Blackbeard asked, kicking Luffy in the stomach this time to get him rolled onto his back.

"Not… telling you… 'nything…" Luffy managed to cough out before Blackbeard raised a foot and pressed his boot onto the side of Luffy's head.

"Oh I'm not askin' ye. I'm askin' yer mates here…" He glanced over at the others, grinding his boot into Luffy's skull. "Which'll break first? One a' ye? Or this boy's skull?"

Carrot and Zoro didn't even hesitate. She dashed towards Luffy and Blackbeard, hoping to tackle the larger man to the ground, while Zoro reached for his swords. Unfortunately all the spunk and chutzpah in the world didn't matter when you were sixteen years old and just above five feet tall. Carrot was easily knocked to the ground by Blackbeard before she could do anything to take him down. "Restrain the little bunny!" Blackbeard called out. Before Carrot could get back to her feet, she was already being pinned down and her wrists tied behind her back with bungee cord.

Zoro too was taken down before he could draw his swords entirely. He was halfway through unsheathing them when a rifle butt smashed into the back of his head, causing him to stagger forward. He almost recovered before someone else swung their rifle into his face, shoved him to the ground, and also got to work tying him up.

Seeing the three of them taken was too much for Ace. "We'll talk! We'll talk, alright, we'll tell you where the outpost is!" he cried out.

At that, Blackbeard started cackling again, digging his heel into Luffy's head. "Why would I care about some landlubber's spit of dirt? All I care about is gettin' payment fer not destroyin' the lot a' ya." He glared at Ace again, finally stepping off of Luffy and walking towards him. Getting close enough that the size discrepancy could be categorized as "intimidating". "Here's how this'll play out, lad. These four'll stay as my guests of honor fer the night. I want ye t'go back ta yer home, come back with supplies. Food, clothes, ammunition. All of it."

"And if I don't," he said, too angry, too rattled to ask it as a question.

"Then I'll kill one o'them. An' tell ye t'come back the next day."

"How much."

Blackbeard stood up as tall as he could, towering over Ace. "I'll decide if it's enough when ye bring it. Go on, lad. Back home with ye."

"ACE! DON'T LISTEN TO THIS GUY! JUST KICK HIS ASS RIGHT NOW! WE CAN TAKE 'EM!" Luffy's sudden outburst earned him another kick, sending him rolling down the deck.

"Tenacious one, that. Where's that confidence come from, I wonder?" Blackbeard mused.

Nami was similarly restrained, offering up a token resistance, even though she knew it would be impossible to escape at this point. Not without Luffy and the others. "Why are you _doing_ this?!" She called out to the pirate captain.

"Dunno if ye noticed'r not… But it's the end o' the world," was the only answer he gave. "And I got people t'keep alive, same as ye. Ye just had the bad luck o' runnin' into me. Innat right, boy?" he looked to Ace and pointed towards the beach. "That shore, there. By sunrise tomorrow. Or else yer pretty redhead girlfriend'll be meetin' Davy Jones."

"That's my pretty redhead girlfriend!" Luffy shouted from his spot on the floor.

"Thanks, babe," Nami muttered.

Blackbeard tipped his hat condescendingly. "My apologies, then." There was a silence as no one seemed to know what to do next. "WELL, GET GOING, BOY!" he shouted at Ace, shoving him back towards the rope ladder. "DON'T FORGET, TOMORROW MORNIN'!"

Ace fumed as he scaled back down, glaring daggers back up at the pirate ship. He wanted nothing more than to storm back up there and take them all on himself. But he didn't have a proper weapon, besides a handful of fish hooks. He briefly entertained the idea of using them like Wolverine claws, but realism dictated that there was no chance he could win. Especially not with his brother and friends as their hostages. He had to play along for now, but don't think for an instant he wasn't already planning a counterattack once his people were safe and secure.

As he turned the Oceanfucker back for port, Blackbeard had his hostages shoved below deck, into what was once the yacht's bar, as they also left for parts unknown. It was formerly a luxury yacht, but any sign of luxury had been summarily removed to make room for hardass pirate aesthetic. Chairs were stripped down to framework with cardboard for cushioning, the bar counter was torn apart and replaced with a minifridge full of rum, the windows were clouded with smoke from cigars. Still, Nami, the only one not suffering from a possible concussion or injury to their ribs, was able to just barely make out a ship as the yacht drew closer to its destination.

The destination in question was a cruise ship, an actual commercial cruise liner that was similarly disgraced from its former luxury. They could see on the side of the ship that it was a Carnival cruiser, but the pirate crew that ran it now probably meant the prisoners were _less_ likely to get diarrhea on the ship.

Men were sent to retrieve them and bring them on deck so they could bask in the cruise liner's glory. They were loaded into a life raft that had been lowered, then raised back up in a makeshift elevator, guns drawn on them the whole time in case they got stupid. Once on deck, they were immediately surrounded again. The yacht had about a dozen men on it. The cruise liner had over a hundred. There really was no chance to escape here.

The deck was stained red with dried blood, robbing it of any sense of luxury or comfort. "What the hell did you do here?" Zoro muttered.

Blackbeard rose up on the lifeboat behind them, arms spread wide in a gesture of magnificence. "What d'ye think of our humble vessel? When we found her, she be RIDDLED with zombies! The entire crew and passengers, turned! We lost dozens o' men reclaiming her, but now she belong to Captain Blackbeard!"

"And then I take it you scrubbed it clean and sanitized it, right?" Nami asked sarcastically. The crew burst into laughter, indicating that, no, they had absolutely not bothered to do that.

"Take these guests to a room! They'll be needin' a place t'spend their final days!" Blackbeard announced.

"Shut up! Ace is gonna show up tomorrow for sure! But he won't have supplies, he's gonna have an army to KICK YOUR ASS!" Luffy shouted as he was dragged away. He and Carrot put up way more of a fight than the other two, making a big show of thrashing around like dogs in the middle of getting a bath.

They were taken to what was once a hallway of passenger rooms and dumped at the end of the hall. Luffy and Zoro were thrown in one, Carrot and Nami in another. Guards were posted at both doors, just in case. Both groups immediately set out to break out of their bindings.

The first thing Luffy and Zoro tried was to have Luffy unsheathe one of Zoro's swords and try to cut the bungee cables that way. Both their hands were bound behind their backs, so Luffy had to back into Zoro and fumble around for his sword. With a lot of shifting, leaning and twisting, Luffy managed to grip one and slide it out halfway before Zoro shouted out "WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT!" when he realized what a terrible idea it would be to swing a sword blindly to try and cut ropes so close to another person's wrist.

Carrot and Nami, however, had the smart idea of bringing their arms underneath their legs so their hands were in front, and working on getting each other untied simultaneously. "We need to get out of here. I'm worried about the guys…" Nami said, taking quick inventory of the room. If a passenger had been staying here, there was no sign of it. It was devoid of luggage and stripped of anything that could potentially be used as a weapon. Not even a lamp to bludgeon someone with.

"Yeah…" Carrot said. "I think Zoro has a concussion, he looked a little…" she wobbled back and forth as a demonstration.

"They let him keep his swords but they don't bother leaving anything for us to use? What's up with these pirates?" Nami said as she rifled through the dresser drawers. She flung open the closet doors, but even the hangers were the kind that were embedded into the closet. Without wire cutters, she wasn't getting them off. "UGH! This is so annoying! I am not going to rely on Zoro to save me!"

"What about Luffy? Can he save you?"

"Normally I wouldn't mind him saving me, but not when he probably has broken ribs."

They were prisoners, but it was still a cruise ship. The pirates who overtook it didn't have the mechanical know-how to convert the doors so they locked from the outside. Nami could open it slowly, peeking through the crack to survey the situation. There was a guard stationed at each door, both armed with assault rifles. Just in case.

Nami was not nearly as stealthy as she thought. Either that, or the guards were at least aware that the door was not an obstacle for her to bypass, as the guard stationed at her door turned his head slightly and quietly acknowledged her presence. She sheepishly ducked back into the room and closed it, the door making a quiet click as it set back into place.

"What's the verdict?" Carrot asked.

"Well, there's two of 'em… But they have guns. I'll bet one of us would survive, at least. Of course, whoever did survive would basically be alone trying to find a way out of here. I didn't see a shoreline before we got dragged here, either… But I wasn't really looking. So even if we did get off the boat, we'd have no idea where to go to get home…"

Carrot's stomach turned a little. "I don't really like this plan so far…"

"Me neither. Alright, alright…" Nami rubbed her chin. "Okay we'll play it cool for now. Need to get a better grip on what's going on before we try to break out…"

They didn't have much of a chance to plan further before there was a thumping knock on the door. "Are ye lasses decent in there?" came Blackbeard's raspy voice.

Nami rolled her eyes. "No. Getting captured and held prisoner got us both _so_ hot and bothered that we stripped down immediately and got caught up in the throes of sapphic passion," she said. Carrot gave her a look that illustrated she had no idea what Nami was talking about. "What do you want?"

Blackbeard took her sarcasm as an invitation to enter and he pushed open the door. He was not surprised to see them untied, and he nodded to acknowledge it. "I came here t'talk business with ye. I dinnae think ye are quite aware of the predicament yer in."

Nami and Carrot looked at each other, then looked around the room. "Well… We're prisoners… You're pirates… And you're holding us ransom for supplies from our home base." Carrot summed up.

"Yeah, that seems about it. Are we missing something here?" Nami asked.

"Oh, I'm not talkin' about this present situation. I speak more on the people ye associate with… Particularly, the boy ye lot have ta put yer faith in. I wouldn't count on Ace ta come back in time… Not his crew's style."

"What do you mean, not his crew's style! I'm _on_ his crew and I know he'd never abandon us!" Carrot protested.

"Yeah! Ace is a great guy!" Nami said. "What, you think he's just going to abandon his brother after you all kicked the wait how do you know who Ace is?"

Blackbeard stared quizzically at Carrot. "Yer part of Ace's crew? Hm. Don't quite remember yer face, bunny. Well, in that case…" He turned back to Nami. "Why don't you and I take a walk around the ship, lass?"

Nami laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, I really don't feel like going for a walk. Unless it's right next door so I can see if my boyfriend's ribs aren't broken after you kicked him around like a soccer ball."

"Oh him? Right as rain, that one! The guard said he and his mate've been thrashin' about, trying to get free!"

As a matter of fact, Luffy and Zoro were still tied up, unable to figure out the most simple way of untying themselves by stepping over their own wrists. Now I could probably justify it by saying Zoro was still a bit woozy from getting clocked in the head and Luffy was too worked up to think clearly, but the straight answer is that they were both idiots. Anyway, where was I?

"Great!" Nami said, but her smile was full of impatient fury. "So let me go _check on him_ and then we can talk!"

"Or!" Blackbeard said jovially. "Since I be the one with the guns and ye be the ones held prisoner, we c'n do it my way and if ye be good, I'll let ye see yer boy." It's easy to win an argument when you have a gun and the other person does not.

Blackbeard led her down the hallway, away from the others, always keeping one hand on the pistol tucked into his belt. "So… Ye dinnae know about Ace an' his boys, eh? Well-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, big guy." Nami held up her palm to have Blackbeard talk to it. "I already know him and Newgate are _up to something_ ~" she said in a spooky voice. "But that's their own business. It doesn't really concern me."

Blackbeard's eyes widened as he grinned at her. "Ye joined a cause ye know nothin' about? A bit foolish, eh?"

"Whoa whoa whoa, I never said I was part of their… whatever they're up to," Nami said. "We're just working together to stay alive. It's an arrangement."

"Stay alive… Zehahahaha… Ye dinnae know a damn thing about Edward Newgate, huh? He's one o' those folks that like ta preach about the 'greater good'. An' people who preach the 'greater good'... Tend ta throw people under tha proverbial bus. Y'understand what I mean?"

"What are you getting at?" Nami stopped walking and turned to face him, an eyebrow raised.

"I'm sayin', lass, that yer boy Ace, he's more'n likely ta decide that savin' yer sorry hides won't contribute ta the 'greater good', savvy? He'd be willin' ta make sacrifices of ye lot."

She still shook her head, scoffing at the idea. "Okay, and why the hell should I even buy into that? Ace lives in my house! How would you know what he's like better than I do?"

Blackbeard practically beamed at the question. Like she asked the exact one he wanted her to. "Because, lass… I was one o' the boys Edward Newgate threw under that bus. I used ta be his right hand man."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Nami's eyebrow remained firmly raised. "I don't believe you."

"What d'ye mean ye don't believe me?! I swear it on me mother's grave!" Blackbeard protested.

Nami shook her head. "Yeah, you don't seem like the kind of guy who cared a lot about his mom."

"Well, if ye need physical proof, feast yer eyes on this!" He rolled up his left sleeve, showing off his forearm. It had a tattoo on it that Nami recognized. Ace tended to go shirtless, so Nami had seen the tattoo marking his back. A skull and crossbones, but this one bore the familiar moustache Nami recognized as Newgate's. Ace's tattoo was perfectly intact, but Blackbeard's had a burn scar running through it. "Recognize the symbol, lass?"

It was hard to refute that, at least. "What happened?" she asked, curious and apprehensive at the same time.

"Like I said, the greater good happened. Newgate cast me aside the minute I stopped bein' useful. I wanted t'keep focused on our own crew, ensure our own survival… But he kept sendin' us out on pointless suicide missions t'track down those he deemed 'worthy'. Eventually, exchanged blows, and he left me with this," he said, gesturing to the scar. "And after he exiled me fer darin' ta speak against him… I got this…"

He pulled up the sleeve on his right arm. There was another scar on that one, but it didn't look like a burn. Nami still recognized it, though, having seen it on another person fairly frequently. "Oh shit, that's a bite, isn't it?"

"Give the girl a prize!" Blackbeard cackled. "I wasn't sure it would work at first. Almost thought about cuttin' me arm off. But I guess even that old bastard can be right about a few things, eh?"

Play dumb, Nami thought. Act like you aren't familiar with it. "Wait… So you're immune? How is that possible?"

He pulled up his sleeve. "Zehahahaha… Ye'd like ta know, wouldn't ye? It be a curious thing, eh? Newgate has the answers, lass."

Nami ran her fingers through her hair. "You're telling me Edward Newgate has the cure?"

He smiled through crooked, missing teeth. "I'm sayin' Edward Newgate knows what caused this whole disaster in th'first place. But that's all I'll say on the matter. If ye want more answers, ye'd better keep yer fingers crossed Ace comes back for ye. He knows just as much as I do."

With that, he refused to answer any other questions, taking Nami back to her holding quarters where Carrot awaited. While they were away, Zoro and Luffy were also brought into the same room, condensing the four into one place. The boys were untied, but Zoro's swords were confiscated, much to his chagrin. He was busy moping on a couch in the far corner of the room when Nami entered the room and had the door slammed shut behind her before she could say anything else to Blackbeard.

"NAMI!" Carrot and Luffy shouted at the sight of her. They bounded towards her and swept her up in a group hug.

"You're safe! I was so worried!" Luffy cried out. "Zoro said you were being dragged away to be made an example of! I thought they were gonna kill you!"

"Wh- ZORO!" Nami shouted, leaning over Luffy's shoulder to glare at the swordless swordsman.

"I just said that was a possibility, relax!" Zoro groaned. He dropped back on the couch to stare up at the ceiling.

She continued to glare at him until Luffy pulled away from the hug to look her over. "You're really okay though? Where'd he take you anyway?" he asked.

Nami opened her mouth, then glanced over to Carrot. "He just trash talked Ace for a little while. He just wanted to mock us about forcing him to run around gathering supplies, said it's part of his… plan or whatever. I don't care." She didn't want to believe what Blackbeard said about Ace and subsequently Newgate. But now wasn't the time to confirm or deny his accusations. Not when they were in danger. It wasn't important at the moment, it was something they could talk about later. Once they were all safe.

They were woken up when it was still dark by a loud pounding on the door. Luffy and Nami sat up suddenly, fumbling in a tangled mess of limbs on one bed. On the other bed, Zoro easily pulled Carrot off of him like she weighed nothing. She had dropped down onto him like a sack of potatoes, lying horizontally across his chest.

A group of pirates, sans Blackbeard himself, led them back to the lifeboats, so they could be lowered and boarded onto the yacht they arrived in. One of the pirates had Zoro's katanas on his back, and Zoro squinted at him. "I'm gonna need those back."

"Hah! Not on your life, pal!" the pirate laughed. Zoro made a mental note to memorize his face and to murder this man when the opportunity arose.

Ten pirates escorted their prisoners back to the beach just before the sun came up. The temporary leader, since Blackbeard was probably still asleep, was the tall, lanky sniper they met the previous night. When the ship arrived at the beach Blackbeard pointed out yesterday, Ace was sitting on the sand, three coolers in front of him. Behind him were Sabo, Koala, Tashigi, and Sanji.

The hostages were surrounded and escorted off, with lanky sniper taking the front, several paces in front of them as he strolled down the dock. "I am Van Auger, Blackbeard's sharpshooter. I was under the impression that you would be here alone." He said, acknowledging the others.

Ace stood up and crossed his arms. "Your captain never said I had to be alone. Just that I had to bring supplies."

"It was implied that you were to be alone," Van Auger said.

"Consider this an implied go fuck yourself."

Van Auger just sneered and stepped forward to investigate the coolers. "Hey hey, whoa, easy there, string bean," Ace said. "How about you wait until my friends are on this side of the beach, huh?"

"You're being particularly rude, boy," Van Auger said.

"Yeah, that would be because I don't like you," Ace said. "Friends first, then you can take your haul."

Van Auger clearly didn't have the time or patience to deal with this, so he gestured for the remaining pirates to bring their prisoners forward. Again, Zoro glanced over at the one holding his swords. "Really gonna need those back."

The pirate still refused, so Zoro scowled at him and kept walking. He made sure to maintain eye contact for as long as possible. The pirates stood near Van Auger with the prisoners, Sabo, Koala, Tashigi and Sanji stood next to Ace, and the coolers were between the two groups.

"You do realize," Van Auger started, bending over to investigate the coolers. "There is no reason for us not to kill you all right here and now."

"Of course there's a reason. You could keep holding our people ransom like that and get all of our loot for free." Ace said. "I'm pretty sure that's what your boss has in mind."

"Perhaps, but what's to stop me from killing you all here, then going to your settlement and killing everyone else and taking all you have at once? It would be easier with your reduced numbers."

Ace shrugged. "Two problems with that. One, you don't know where our settlement is, and two, you don't know how many people we have."

"True, true…" Van Auger slowly pried the lid off one cooler. It was full to the top with various canned products and fresh vegetables. "But, there are other colonies out there for us to plunder, and it really would make me happy to see you dead. The little pleasures in life, right? Without them, can we call ourselves a civilization?"

"But!" Ace countered, "Trying to kill us would lead to an attack on our end, and your people might die too."

Van Auger looked over his shoulder. He shrugged. "They're henchmen. They're inherently disposable."

"HEY!" two of them shouted, offended.

"I'm afraid there really is no way around it. We're going to kill you and that's that. Perhaps if you weren't so annoying, it would be different, but yes. Yes, I'm going to have you lot, and these prisoners, killed."

"Yeah… I figured," Ace said.

"That's why we filled the coolers with flashbangs and smoke grenades," Koala said. She pulled a small handheld device from behind her back and pressed the trigger.

"I knew you would-" BOOM! Went the bombs, scorching Van Auger's eyes and sending him reeling back. The pirates and their prisoners were blinded by the sudden light and their breathing made difficult by the thick cloud of smoke that bellowed from the now-damaged coolers. Fortunately, Ace and the others had the foresight to keep their eyes shut before the bombs went off.

Shooting into the cloud of smoke would've been a bad idea, so our heroes charged them, instead. Now I don't know if you've ever seen someone get straight-up dropkicked, but it really is a beautiful sight. Sanji took a running leap, shooting out both of his legs in midair to slam the rubber soles of his shoes into the side of a blinded pirate's head, taking him down almost instantly. The pirate dropped to the sand like a bag of hammers.

Sabo tried tackling a pirate like a football player, but couldn't close the distance before he drew a pistol. He took the pirate down, but ended up in a struggle to keep the pirate from aiming the pistol at his head while he was on top of him. They grappled for pistol dominance while the smoke cleared and everyone's vision slowly started to return. The pirate forced the pistol as close as he could to Sabo's head, and Sabo had only a second to tilt his head away before the trigger was pulled and a bullet grazed the side of his head, leaving a gash that immediately started bleeding into his hair. Out of options, Sabo had to abandon trying to wrestle the gun away and instead just swung his head down, smashing his forehead into his opponent's in a savage and desperate headbutt. It took the pirate out of commision, but also left him pretty dazed.

Everyone's vision returning, the pirate with Zoro's swords realized the kind of dire straits he was in. Thinking quickly, he wrapped an arm around Zoro from behind, backing away from the battle, and quickly pointed a gun at his head. Tashigi saw this and halted her charge, visibly tense as she scanned for a chance to strike. "St-stay back! I'll blow his fucking brains out, you psychopath!"

Zoro blinked the blurriness away from his only functional eye and realized who it was that had him hostage. "You," he muttered, before using his amazing gorilla-like strength to reach behind him, grab the guy, and lunge forward, flipping him over his shoulder and slamming him onto his back on the sand.

"I guess you had that handled," Tashigi said casually, kicking the gun away from his hand before he could raise it at either of them. Then someone stabbed her in the side.

Van Auger was about to get to his feet, his eyes burning from being so damn close to the flashbangs, when he felt someone grab him from behind, wrapping him up in a full nelson. "ACE!" he heard Luffy yell out. He could only make out a few blurry shapes when suddenly a fist drove into his stomach and forced all the air out of his lungs. Van Auger was not the most athletic and/or fit man in the world, so that was really all it took to take him out of the fight. He slumped to the ground and gasped for air, sensing the scuffle happening around him.

Koala was a martial artist. She was probably the only person in this nineteen-person brawl who actually had actual training in hand-to-hand combat. Bringing a bunch of disoriented, panicking pirates to their knees was pretty easy, but all it took was someone acting outside of her field of vision for her to take a swing from a metal pipe to the face. She dropped to the ground and felt something hard in her mouth. As she scrambled to get to her feet, she spit out whatever it was, only to discover that it was a molar. Furious, she leapt back up, whirling around to grab the pipe and wrench it out of her attacker's hand. She tossed it aside, grabbed him by the hair with both hands, and brought his face down to meet her rising knee, smashing his nose into his skull.

Tashigi gripped the knife sticking out of her side and held it in place, knowing that pulling it out would pretty much kill her from bloodloss. She literally did not have time to bleed, keeping one hand on her side and holding her sword with the other. Her vision might've been blurring, but she had no plans on dying here. She spun around, thrusting her sword into the gut of the guy who stabbed her from behind. The momentum of her thrust, combined with her own lightheadedness, brought her toppling down with him, further driving the katana into his stomach as they both hit the ground.

Van Auger had managed to recover his breath by now. He couldn't really open fire with a sniper rifle in close quarters like this, but rifles were still heavy. He got to his feet, and swung it like a club, smashing Luffy in the jaw and sending him staggering. Fortunately, before he could continue his assault, Nami was there to kick him in the back of the knees, taking his legs out from underneath him.

Carrot was particularly vicious, though. She pounced on a pirate's back, trying to bring him down with her body weight, but she was not really heavy enough to do that. So instead she resorted to scratching and clawing and pulling hair. And when the pirate tried to shove her off by reaching back and pushing on her face, she instead bit down on his fingers. Hard. Hard enough that one of them actually tore off in her mouth and she had to spit it out. The guy eventually got Carrot off of his back, but yeah, that happened.

The all-out brawl continued much in this manner for a while, as the numbers slowly dwindled down. People were either rendered unconscious, too weak to get up, or in a few cases, outright killed. When all was said and done, only Zoro, Luffy, Ace, Carrot, and Koala were left standing. But let's be totally clear, they were not in the best condition. Tashigi had managed to roll over onto her back to stare up at the sky, doing what she could to keep the bleeding to a minimum. Sanji had been knocked out at some point, but no one was sure what happened. Sabo's head was bleeding worse than he thought and he felt like he might've given himself a concussion. And Nami was kneeling on the sand, clutching her hand because she was pretty sure she had broken three of her fingers punching someone in the face.

"That fucking sucked…" Nami groaned.

Ace spit out a mouthful of blood. "Yeah, coulda gone better." He kicked a pirate in the side to make sure he was actually unconscious. "I thought the smoke would last longer. Koala," he said almost accusingly.

Koala was still poking her tongue at the new hole in her teeth. "You gave us like twelve hours to whip up a set of bombs! We did the best we could!"

"Hey…" Tashigi's voice came in a weak gurgle. "Could we maybe not argue and just go home? Pretty sure I'm dying…"

"Oh shit. Yeah let's bail. Before they wake up," Zoro said, kneeling down to gingerly pick Tashigi up. It was a difficult balance of trying not to move her too much but also remembering that time was of the essence. Ace and Carrot picked up Sanji, who was still out, and Koala let Sabo lean on her as they moved off the beach.

Nami looked over her shoulder at the unconscious and/or dead pirates. "Should we do something about them?"

There was a hush over the group and then Ace concluded "Fuck 'em." No one really wanted to argue on their behalf.

The drive back to the outpost only took a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The gate slid open and the first thing they did was make a beeline for Law's house, which answered the unspoken question everyone at home had, "How'd it go?"

Law screamed with his mouth shut for thirty seconds when he saw nine patients stumble into his clinic. Obviously Tashigi took priority over everyone else, but he still was not happy with the idea of eight wounded people in his family room while he tried to save someone's life in his clinic.

Perona was called over and Vivi was available to patch up some of the more minor injuries. "I'm glad you're all okay! In a… manner of speaking…" Vivi said. "We were all pretty shaken when Ace told us what happened…"

Nami winced as Perona tried to set her fingers. Fortunately, the fingers weren't broken, but one was dislocated, and the other two were sprained. "Yeah, Ace, we need to talk when we're done here."

"Ready?" Perona asked, gripping Nami's dislocated finger.

"Not yet-GAAAAHH!" Nami shrieked as Perona forced it back into place. "I SAID I WASN'T READY!"

"I wasn't listening," Perona said. She set and bandaged Nami's other fingers, leaving her left hand functionally useless for the time being, but Nami did not plan on making any trips for a while anyway.

"Anyway," Nami grumbled, "Ace, I think everyone here should have a talk once we're patched up. And conscious." Sanji was currently still knocked out and being fussed over by Baby. Or at least, it _seemed_ he was unconscious, but some of the others in Law's house suspected he was faking it to get attention from her.

"Yeah… sure." Ace muttered.

Luffy looked between his brother and his girlfriend. "Did something happen between you two? It wasn't Ace's fault that we got captured…"

"We'll see about that, babe."

Nothing makes you feel quite as twisted as having someone tell you "we need to talk" and then not elaborating on it until they decide on a time to actually talk. Don't do this, folks. Seriously. If you need to talk and it's not about something bad, be up front about that. Front-load your "we need to talk" with "Hey it's not a big deal so don't worry, but when you got a second". And if it is about something bad, front-load it by telling them what the issue is.

Anyway, Ace had to sit there, stewing in dread while everyone waited for Law to emerge and give them either good news or bad news. Once the other injuries were treated and Sanji woke up, proving that he was actually unconscious, the only thing left to do was let the clock tick. No one wanted to leave the house, and even outside, the others were only putting on a show of going about their work.

When Law finally emerged from the clinic, he nodded to the crowd and took a deep breath. "Well… Unfortunately, she's going to recover."

Amidst the sighs of relief, Carrot was the one who perked up and asked, "Wait, unfortunately?"

"Yes. Unfortunately. Because now I have another patient to take care of," he said.

"Boooooooo!" Vivi called out, giving him a thumbs down. "You're the meanest doctor ever!"

"Maybe I wouldn't be so mean if you all could stop getting yourselves critically wounded and burning through my supplies."

With Tashigi's survival secured, the group started to disperse. As they shuffled out of Law's house, Ace grabbed Nami by the arm. "So… What'd you want?"

She shook her head. "Not now. Later tonight. Everyone needs to be involved in this."

"Can you at least tell me what this is all about?"

She looked at him, maintaining perfect eye contact. "I want to know what you know about the end of the world."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Town meetings in the storage house were not a common thing, but there was precedent for them. With the addition of Newgate's people, the family room felt even more crowded, with the majority of the group standing while Ace, Sabo, Carrot, Tashigi, Margaret, and Koala were sitting in the center, facing out at the crowd, some of whom were still injured from their fight with Blackbeard's people. They were bandaged and bruised, and Sanji was still looking a little disoriented, leaning onto Baby's shoulder to keep himself upright.

"What's this all about, Nami?" Franky asked, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "Something happen? Y'know, besides gettin' kidnapped?"

"No. Well, yeah that's part of it, but…" She sighed. "Look, I know we all pretend like it's not there but we all know, right? That Newgate's people have ulterior motives for being here?"

The WEB members tensed up. Even Tashigi, despite being numbed on painkillers. Margaret felt her social anxiety flare up.

The others all muttered amongst themselves.

"Oh yeah."

"Yeah it was pretty obvious."

"I didn't want to bring it up…"

"W-wait, you _all_ knew?" Ace asked.

Robin said "Margaret more or less confirmed it, but I didn't want to pry." Margaret rubbed the back of her neck.

"And come on, a guy like Newgate just happens to want to partner up with us?" Zoro said.

"But… You just went along with it?" Sabo asked. "Even though you thought we weren't being honest?"

"Well, yeah! Ace is my brother! I know he'd never try to hurt me!" Luffy said.

"And my mom trusted your boss, and she's a pretty good judge of character," Nami said.

"So why the sudden suspicion?" Ace asked.

That's when Nami stepped forward a bit, her expression turning more serious. "Well, that Blackbeard guy? He told me he worked for Newgate. And he said Newgate was up to some dirty shit."

"Oh boy…" Ace said, dragging his hand down his face. Sabo and Koala sank down in their chairs.

"I don't believe him, but for the sake of keeping us all safe from Newgate's enemies? I think maybe you all should just come clean already."

There was a lot of attention and a lot of peer pressure suddenly hoisted upon the WEB members. It was pretty clear they weren't leaving the room without answers. They exchanged a few awkward glances, with five of them settling on looking to Ace to give the explanation.

"Well, it was gonna happen eventually," he said through gritted teeth. "Alright. But look, I want you all to believe that everything I'm about to say is the truth. You have to accept that. It's all true, hard fact. Because sometimes people don't, and that can lead to problems, and that's why we have to be secretive in the first place."

He got a collective nod from everyone, then he took a deep breath. "Alright." He looked to Robin. "Robin, have you ever wondered _why_ you didn't turn when you were bitten?"

"OH my God, nope." She sank down in her chair, then stood up, gesturing to wash her hands of the conversation. "No, I'm not getting involved in this again." She tried walking out of the room, but Zoro grabbed her arm as she passed him.

"Sit down, this is important," he said, annoyed.

Robin glared pure seething hatred at him before moving back to her chair. She brought her knees up to her chest and folded her arms up. An entire room full of people were watching a 30+ year old woman pout right in front of them.

"Right… so… anyway, there's that… And Law, you used to do research on zombies, right? Back when the infection was first starting out?"

"Yeah, but I never found anything. No bacteria, virus, mutation. Fungal growth, cancer. We looked for _everything_."

"You weren't going to find anything. Nothing biological, at least. Physically there's no difference between a zombie and a regular corpse," Ace said.

Law nodded along. "Alright… So what _should_ I have been looking for?"

"Are you ready? Get this. _Magic_." Ace held his arms out, waiting for everyone's reaction. "Magic."

The crowd either didn't know how to react or weren't impressed at all.

"I don't get it," Luffy said, breaking the silence.

Ace looked to the other WEB members for support, but they all shrugged. "Alright, we'll go back to the very beginning." He turned his head to face Robin. "Hey, Robin. What do you know about the Poneglyphs?"

Robin scratched the side of her head in thought. "The Poneglyphs? I haven't really thought about them for a while. You know of them too?"

"I should. They're the key to all of this," Ace said.

"I'm just as lost as Luffy now," Vivi said. "Can we all get on the same page?"

Ace gestured to Robin and she, despite being put on the spot, seemed glad to actually give a history lesson. She cracked her knuckles in preparation. "The Poneglyphs are a little-known part of our planet's history. No one knows who built them, when they were built, or how they were built. They're obelisks, made of black marble, and they're carved with some manner of ancient writing."

"I did pretty good in world history when I was in school," Franky said. "I don't remember hearin' about these things."

"They're little more than oddities, strange little quirks in history. A mystery that only appeals to historical conspiracy buffs," Robin said. "Like me," she said with a hint of pride and embarrassment. "I did my thesis on them in college. I wanted to be an archaeologist."

"Oh awesome! You got to dig stuff up out in the middle of the desert and stuff?" Luffy asked.

"Well, no, but I did end up employed by a museum in Canada to look over important artifacts," Robin said proudly.

This was technically true. Robin had high hopes after graduating college and thought she had a straight path to exploring the ancient world as an archaeologist. However, the only job she could get was a night shift security guard at a history museum. Then two years after that, the zombies arrived. Which goes to show you that hard work never pays off and you should never try.

"So what do you know about them?" Sabo asked.

"Well…" Robin tried to recall the contents of her thesis. "I know that information is nearly impossible to come by. Very few papers published about them, archives not showing a lot of content… The language is decipherable, but nothing like any other known language in history. It's difficult to trace the origins of it. It's like a secret code instead of an actual written language."

"I'll bet you had a hard time writing that paper, huh?" Koala said, laughing a little. "Information go missing a few times?"

Robin nodded, surprised. "Yes, actually. I would find a source, come back to it another day, and the entire site would be down. Pages would fall out of the books I checked out at the library, hell, twice my entire paper was deleted! It was a borderline miracle I got it out in time."

"There's a reason for that. Information about the Poneglyphs doesn't like being shared. It affects everyone who tries to research them. It's like they actively repel any attempt to decipher them. The only reliable way to learn more about them is through direct observation and verbal communication. Anything written down or typed has a tendency to vanish, given enough time," Koala said.

Zoro scoffed. "That's ridiculous. You're saying these big rocks are somehow preventing people from learning about them?"

"No, no… That actually makes sense," Robin said, biting her thumbnail. "The museum I worked in, it had a Poneglyph on display. I learned more about it just by studying it in person on my free time than I learned doing months of research for my thesis."

"But it's a rock. How could it do… anything?" Sanji said. His expression drooped when he realized what they were getting at. "Unless it's…"

"Magic!" Ace snapped his fingers. "So, Robin, you decoded that one, right? The one in the museum? What was on it?"

"It spoke of a great flood. A neverending rainstorm that would drown out the entire planet. I couldn't get every detail exactly down, but that was the gist of it."

"That sounds Biblical," Coby muttered.

"If the flood in the Bible was the same as the one written on the Poneglyph, we'd still be underwater," Ace said. "They aren't designed to go away."

Nami ran her hands through her hair. "Okay, okay, can we skip ahead a bit? What does all this have to do with the zombies?! And Blackbeard?!"

"Yeah! I forgot we were even talking about that!" Luffy followed up.

"We're getting there, we're getting there!" Ace protested. "I'll take it from here, Robin. Thanks for getting us started."

"You're welcome. I'm glad I could actually talk about them for once."

"So the Poneglyphs," Ace started. "We don't know how many there are out there, but we've discovered six. They're all over the world, no sensible pattern on where they are. Each one has the exact same proportions, the exact same style of writing on them, and they're made of the exact same material, with no marks, scratches, or signs of decay. They're just as flawless as the day they were made. And each one has a different message on it, but they all have the same idea: The end of the world." He paused for dramatic effect.

There were no gasps of shock, but at least he still had everyone's attention. He continued talking. "They all describe the events of different apocalypses. The great flooding that you described, Robin. There's one that was found in Ireland that describes the air of the planet suddenly turning toxic."

"There was one found at the wreckage of the Titanic, even," Tashigi said. "That one talks about the slow rotting of vegetation across the planet."

"There was a Poneglyph on the Titanic?!" Franky ejaculated. Wait, no, that's gross. Let me try that again.

"There was a Poneglyph on the Titanic?!" Franky shouted.

"Oooooor it just so happened the Titanic sank near one and it had been underwater the whole time~" Carrot chirped. "I like that theory more because it's even weirder."

Ace waved his hand dismissively. "You get the idea. The point is, Newgate was trying to collect these. To keep these catastrophes from happening. See… They aren't prophecies." He suddenly lowered his head, looking serious as possible. "They're instructions. A step by step guide to ending the world."

"Newgate was the first on record to crack the code, or at least the first to crack the code and want to do something about it," Koala said. "He knew that if someone else got a hold of them, they might, y'know, try it."

"The lack of available information made it hard to track them down, but he founded the WEB in secret for the sole purpose of tracking all possible leads on the Poneglyphs. Even before Zombie Day, the Brotherhood was working to find them," Ace said.

"Ohhhh… Ohhh! I get it!" Coby sat up. "Zombie Day! You're saying that this all happened because someone deciphered and followed the instructions on one of the Poneglyphs!"

"Bingo!" Ace pointed to Coby. "Got it in one!" The smile faded from his face. "Unfortunately, that was one of the Poneglyphs we didn't find until after the apocalypse was already triggered. On the plus side, it's a pretty slow-burning one. I mean, just imagine if someone triggered the apocalypse that turned the air to poison."

"That would be awful!" Luffy said.

"Or one that raised the planet's temperature until we were all burned alive," Margaret said.

"Equally as awful!"

"Yes, you're right. I suppose we lucked out by having the dead rise and seek only to devour us. The complete collapse of civilized society is a warm comfort. You've really opened my eyes here," Law groaned, sinking in his chair. " _Magic_ ," he hissed. "At least now I can accept that there's nothing to do and there is no cure. You can't cure a disease if there _is_ no disease."

"Well, no, that's not entirely accurate," Sabo said. "There is _something_ we can do, and that leads us all the way back to the beginning. Why didn't Robin turn when she was bitten?"

"So, we don't know how it works," Tashigi said.

"And frankly finding out isn't a priority," Margaret interrupted.

Tashigi shot her a look, then continued, "But it seems that anyone who can decipher the language is rendered immune from the negative effects. Once you can read the Poneglyphs, you won't have to worry about falling victim to the apocalypse yourself."

Robin was silent, then spoke up. "So the reason I don't turn is because… I wrote a paper in college."

"Really, this is all just proof of the importance of a solid college education," Franky noted in total earnest.

There was a sudden lull in the discussion as everyone tried to come to grips with what they had just heard. It was a lot to take in. "So…" Luffy said after putting all the pieces together in his head. "So that's really how it works?"

"That's how it works," Ace said. "Now you know why we were trying to keep it a secret. It's not exactly something you can mention casually to people. And it's difficult to get the word out when information has a tendency to go the hell away."

"I mean, look at what we had to do here. We had to get you all in a room and sit down and give you a lecture. And you already trusted us to begin with! You can imagine the trouble we've had trying to spread the word, so to speak," Sabo said.

"I'm just wondering…" Robin was also trying to process it all, although she had a better grasp on it than Luffy did. "What _you all_ are doing here, then. Why did you come _here?_ "

"Oh! Right!" Margaret perked up. "You! We're here for you! We want you to join the WEB and move to Rochester to help out."

Robin was almost afraid to ask. "Help out? With what…?"

Margaret spoke very plainly. "Someone's gotta teach the language. It's the only way we can actually beat this thing back."

"Oh jeeze…" Nami said. "Newgate's plan can't be… to teach this Poneglyph language to everyone in the world, right?"

"Ohhh!" Luffy snapped his fingers. "That's really smart! Then everyone would be immune!"

Ace nodded. "Yeah, that's the idea. Everyone who learns the language is immune. A few of us already know it. I do, so do Tashigi and Sabo. It's just hard trying to spread the knowledge. Learning the language means you could potentially trigger another apocalypse, so we want to do it in an environment we can control. Newgate only trusts his own people to handle that responsibility, so we need you to join us."

Nami rubbed her chin in thought. "The greater good, huh?" She looked up to Ace again. "That's what Blackbeard meant. He told me he left your organization because Newgate was focusing more on saving the world than protecting his own people."

"Oh." Ace scoffed. "That? Yeah he's bullshitting you. Blackbeard was more interested in profit and conning people out of their stuff than he was actually recruiting people. He'd give them the spiel and then say that he required payment, which is absolutely not something we do. We had to do a lot of extra work to backtrack when he said that, but he kept it up. Everything the guy did was for a profit. The final straw was when he left some of our people to die because they wouldn't pay him to save them. So Newgate broke his jaw and sent him on his way."

"We should do something about him, though…" Tashigi muttered to herself.

Robin cleared her throat. "Listen, I appreciate the offer, but… I don't know how great of a teacher I could be. Also, I don't really want to move."

The WEB members all looked tense, slightly frustrated. "Look, we can… talk about that in private later," Ace said, clearly not expecting such an outright refusal.

"I just wanna get one thing clear," Franky suddenly said. "So all of this, the whole alliance, everything, that was all just to get an audience with Robin? Seems super inconvenient to me."

"No, no, no," Sabo waved his hand dismissively. "Look, we were looking for Robin, yeah, but actually forging the alliance, that was for everyone's benefit. We're in this to help you guys, just like you're helping us. We're on your side."

There was another lull in the conversation and Tashigi looked back and forth between the crowd and her people. "So… does anyone else… have any questions?" She felt much like a student giving a presentation in class.

"Yeah… What comes next for us?" Zoro was the one to ask. "Are we going Poneglyph hunting or whatever? What do _we_ have to do?"

"Well, if you _want_ to help, we occasionally get some leads when it's our turn to make deliveries. Nothing big so far, but we're always on the lookout," Tashigi said.

Zoro didn't seem appeased. "What about anyone we should worry about? Any more splinter groups like that Blackbeard guy?"

Ace thought about that for a second. "No... Blackbeard and his people are the only ones I know of that actually broke off with the WEB. There are other people, like Robin, who just stumbled upon these things by themselves, but they shouldn't really pose a threat. Really, it's almost a boon that we ran into him. Now that we know his whereabouts, we can take care of him once and for all."

"Yeah, we did kinda leave a bunch of his guys to die…" Nami muttered. "He's probably going to try and retaliate."

"No, that's not how he operates. If he'd retaliate for any reason, it'd be because we cost him a boat," Koala muttered. "We chased him off once already. Having him never come back would be even better."

Nami sank down in her seat. "So we're onto a murder plot, then."

"Hey, he kidnapped you guys, beat the crap out of my brother, and he got several of my friends killed. He's a bad guy. I don't feel bad about putting him down," Ace said.

"Ace you're so cool…" Luffy said in a strained whisper of awe.

"If we're all done here, I think I'm going to go out," Robin suddenly announced. She stood up and headed for the door before anyone could stop her. "I have a lot to think about."

Vivi, ever the helper, was the first one out of her seat to follow after her, the others wisely chose to just let her be instead.

It was firmly nighttime outside, and Vivi almost had a hard time seeing Robin in the darkness, crossing over to her own house. "Hey! Robin!"

Robin contained a sigh. "I'm fine, Vivi," she said without turning around. "I'm just mentally preparing myself for when they try to convince me to join their cause."

"You're not going with them at all, are you?" Vivi asked.

"Not a chance," Robin said, finally turning around. "The outpost is my home. You people are my family now, I'm not leaving that behind. If they want me to help, they can come find me right here. I'm done getting involved in major causes."

"So you believe the story, then?"

She shrugged. "It's the best theory I've heard so far, and they were right about me knowing the language. I suppose I just stopped caring about it in the long run. You knew that, though."

"Yeah, I guess…" Vivi bit her bottom lip in thought. "Would you teach me, though? Y'know. Just in case?"

"It's going to be a difficult process. I'd have to do it all from memory, though I'm sure the others could help you."

"I just figure, y'know, better safe than sorry. I need to be prepared for anything! Especially once this," she pointed to her stomach, "starts to become more of a thing."

For the rest of the night, there was a level of anxiety weighing over the entire outpost. The twelve non-WEB members had to deal with the knowledge they had been given. They say ignorance is bliss, and they're right. It was the level of anxiety you feel when you look out the window and see the stormcloud coming. Or when you become aware of the murderous clown standing right behind you. They were going to be there whether you were aware of it or not, the only difference is now you knew to fear it.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

You know who wasn't afraid of a damn thing right now? Monet. She was doing better than roughly 95% of the living population left on Earth.

This is because she was currently waking up on a gorgeous Florida morning, in the nicest suite of a five-star luxury resort, after spending the vast majority of the night having mind-blowingly good sex with a former rapper who now claimed to be a god.

She had been living in the lap of luxury since she first arrived and told Enel as much as she knew about the whereabouts of Little Garden, which was several weeks ago. This earned her VIP status by default, so she spent a lot of time hovering around him and his highest-ranked missionaries. She didn't really pay attention to whatever they were saying, though, she just took advantage of their hospitality.

The sex part started a little over a week ago, when she just suggested it to him and he took her up on the offer. So they had been banging on the regular.

This morning she climbed out of bed and wrapped the sheet around her like a modesty blanket. Because this story is rated M, so we can only imply. Enel wasn't in the bedroom, so she stumbled past the door, running her hand through her hair to brush it away from her face.

She found him standing on the balcony, overlooking the ocean and the beach connected to the resort. And he was completely naked so never mind I guess this is that kind of story, sure whatever.

"Hey. Mornin'. Whatcha lookin' at?" Margaret asked, yawning as she joined him on the balcony.

"Ah, I'm just taking in the pure beauty of my domain. You know it's my responsibility to keep the weather like this? Just one of the many things I control."

"You keep the weather clear and sunny? I figured that was just… Florida being Florida," Monet said teasingly.

Enel didn't seem humored, but he took it in stride. "Have you noticed we haven't had a cloudy day since you arrived? No storms, no rain, just sunshine?" He gestured to himself with his thumb.

Monet just shrugged it off. "Whatever you say, boss. So… why aren't you wearing pants?"

"I like to feel the sun on my body in the morning! You don't have a problem with it, do you?" he asked with a grin.

"Look, you do you, I do me, sometimes we do each other. We should just keep it like that," she said. She walked away from him to find something to eat, leaving him to bask in his naked, godly glory.

He stood there for a while longer, then turned around to follow after her, still not bothering to dress himself. "You know, Monet, I still feel as if you don't fully understand the extent of my power. It could be my fault, perhaps I haven't been clear with you."

"Nah, I think I get it," she said, sitting on the counter with a peach in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. "You got that magic rock and it has secret codes that gave you superpowers."

"A rather blunt way of putting it. No, it seems you don't understand the true nature of my divinity. You can't quite _grasp_ the potential I wield in my hands… Perhaps you need to see it for yourself. It's been long enough, I think."

"Ooooh, I'm special enough to see the big bad secret of Paradise? I'm honored," she said in a flighty sort of voice.

"It's no secret, Monet. All who live in Paradise are free to see the source of my divine power." He grabbed her by the wrist while she was in the middle of bringing the bottle to her mouth. "And once you see, once you _believe_ , perhaps you'll feel more like doing your part to make Paradise a better place for everyone."

"Kinda hurts when you squeeze that hard, boss," Monet said, leaning away from him.

Enel let her wrist go and walked towards the door. "Come. I have much to teach you."

As he reached for the door handle, Monet called out, "Are we gonna get dressed first, or…?"

Enel stood frozen for a second, dropped his forehead against the door, then turned around to walk for the bedroom.

Once both parties were wearing enough clothes to be presentable, he led her to the resort's elevator and down to the basement floor. It was an area that was once reserved for staff, and as such the lingering remains of social decency meant the people living in Paradise still had reservations about opening a door marked "Employees Only". In this regard, Monet could assume that Enel and his missionaries were the new "employees" of the resort, so he had no such reservations as he led her down into the maintenance area of the building.

Being led down twisting hallways and dimly lit rooms pushed Monet to focus on her surroundings and make sure she could work her way back alone, on the very likely chance that he was actually leading her down somewhere to murder her and she would have to escape. Her fears were not necessarily put to rest when she was led into a room that, at first glance, looked like an occultish ritualistic sacrifice chamber.

Deep in the corners of the resort basement was a shrine room, lit by blue fluorescent lights and a number of ceremonial-looking candles scattered on display tables pushed against each of the four walls. The room was bare of any furniture, but smack-dab in the center was a black monolith with strange symbols carved into it. The light reflected off of its smooth surface and the way it caught in the carved symbols made it seem like they had an ethereal glow to them. It was a Poneglyph. You knew that, I know that, but Monet had no idea what she was looking at.

Underneath the Poneglyph was some kind of summoning circle. The same symbols present on the Poneglyph were painted along the edge of the circle, as if it were being used to bring something from one realm to this one. Fortunately, there was no sign of bloodstains anywhere in the room, which meant the odds of her being ritually sacrificed were reduced. Some of the significance was lost on her, but if you see a ritualistic worship room to any old giant stone obelisk, you're going to react to it.

"Dear God…" she muttered as she stepped inside. Enel stayed in the doorway.

"Yes, you got it in one, my dear," he quipped. "Who else but God would be responsible for something like this?"

She felt compelled to walk toward it, holding her hand inches away from it. "Can I touch it? It won't, y'know, disintegrate me or anything?"

"Do you recognize the language written on it?" Enel asked, not answering her question.

She looked at it with new eyes, having just realized that it was a language, not a set of random symbols. "No. I have no idea what I'm looking at."

He seemed disappointed. "Pity," he said. "I was hoping you'd be able to offer some insight. I first discovered this on a vacation in Australia. I was hiking with some associates when we fell through a sinkhole and discovered this object. It didn't take long to deduce its divine nature… As I mentioned to you when we first met, I became God shortly before the dead started walking. And this object is the conduit from which I channel my divinity. I've only been able to decipher a portion of it, but what I have learned has granted me the most extraordinary abilities."

"So you can read what this says?"

As Enel stepped into the room, the candles closest to him, the ones on the tables next to the doorway, suddenly extinguished themselves. She swallowed hard. It was a little odd and it darkened his features. In the back of her mind Monet thought about a change in lighting can make someone look completely different. "It says the most wonderful things, Monet. It speaks of how to rid this world of impurities. It speaks of how to protect the people worth protecting. It speaks of how to wield divine power in a just and loving way." He took another step closer, more of the candles, in a further radius from him, extinguished themselves.

Monet wondered if there was a fan nearby. She didn't want to look away from him, but for an instant, her eyes darted to the walls, scanning for a vent of some kind. She didn't like the way the darker room, illuminated by roughly three fourths of the candles and the dim blue lights, made his smile look. "Okay… I think I get what you're saying now…" She took a step back, but the distance between her and the obelisk was rapidly closing, as was the distance between her and Enel.

"What I've yet to determine, Monet, is if you're one of those worth saving, or an impurity to be cleansed." With another step, the lighting shifted again. She backed up into the Poneglyph, looking over her shoulder and, in her current state, could have sworn the letters themselves were glowing now. She looked back to him and he too had a pale blue glow that seemed to be coming from under his skin.

"What… Is… Happening…" she choked out as he took another step towards her.

"Master Enel, one of our missionaries has returned." The voice came from behind Enel, standing in the doorway. He was a bald man, wearing narrow sunglasses, even though the basement was pretty dark already. He had a longsword across his back and a tattoo covering his right arm.

All at once, Enel's entire demeanor changed. His eyes widened and he clapped his hands together cheerfully. "Have they now! Well, Ohm, don't keep me waiting!" He turned around, apparently forgetting all about Monet, who still had her back firmly pressed against the Poneglyph. "What news have they brought?"

"It's Lucci, sir. He has a full report ready, but it seems they've found the outpost we've been searching for. They sent Lucci on ahead of them so we could make preparations for our guests."

Enel was practically beaming with joy. Figuratively beaming, not like the literal glowing Monet thought he was doing earlier. "Did you hear that, Monet? Your tip finally paid off! Well, we have much to prepare for, so I'll probably be busy for the rest of the day." He wrung his hands in excitement. "Go take a walk around the resort, find something to do. I'll call for you if I need you." He cackled as he practically skipped out of the room, muttering "Plans plans plans plans" the whole time.

Ohm and Monet stood in silence for a while as she slowly peeled herself away from the Poneglyph. "Wh-... What the fuck just happened?" she choked out in a high-pitched voice.

"What? Sorry, were you two in the middle of something?" Ohm asked.

"H-he was fucking-! Glowing! You didn't see that?! His body was fucking glowing and he could make the candles go out and- What the fuck IS this thing?!"

Ohm stroked his beard as he looked between her and the Poneglyph. "What, all this stuff? Don't worry about it. I mean, I _could_ tell you what's going on. But it's a really long story and… I don't want to. So I won't. Go walk around, cool off. Don't get in Master Enel's way for a day, we have stuff to do." With that, he turned around and left the doorway, leaving Monet alone with the Poneglyph.

Once he was gone, she immediately jumped away from it and studied it cautiously, at any moment expecting it to somehow shoot lasers at her or blind her or curse her to rot away. It was a difficult task trying to convince herself that she was hallucinating. It wouldn't be the first time, of course, but she was pretty sure she wasn't high at the present time.

It also dawned on her that, after calming herself down, she had forgotten the path she had taken down here. "W-wait… Hey! How do I get outta here…?"

It took Monet a lot of wandering and a lot of backtracking to figure out how to get out of the basement. She ended up back where she started fairly often because everything looked the damn same down there. She felt like a cave dweller feeling natural light on her skin for the first time when she finally found her way out, and once she felt she was no longer in danger, tried to process what it was she saw down there.

She wasn't really paying attention to where she was going. She wandered out the front door of the resort, out into the parking lot and looked up at the sky. It was a fairly clear day, with only a few clouds drifting lazily overhead. Monet thought again about what Enel said. It had always been like this since she arrived. Clear, sunny days with just the occasional cloud to offer a brief cooling period of shade.

Because she was too busy focusing on that, she didn't hear someone calling out her name. She didn't hear him until he was basically screaming in her ear, and when she looked down at the source, she regretted it. "Oh God, Helmeppo."

"Don't you 'Oh God' me! What the hell have you been doing?! I haven't seen you for weeks!" He glanced from her to the resort building. "WH- ARE YOU STAYING IN THERE?!"

"Aren't you?" she asked. Helmeppo had probably been looking for her since they both arrived, but she honestly forgot he existed.

"NO!" he screeched. "I was shoved into the condos across the street with all the other workers! You mean you've been living it up in the ivory towers while I slave away down here!? You heartless bitch!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She tried pushing past him, but he got in her way.

"How do you think they keep this place so clean! They still have wait staff! Me and a bunch of other assholes have to work day in and day out to keep it clean and orderly and running! Fuck this 'Paradise' shit! It's a hellhole as far as I'm concerned!"

"Yeah maybe…" she muttered. This seemed to catch Helmeppo off guard. He clearly wasn't expecting her to suddenly get contemplative, but once he recovered, he pressed the issue.

"E-exactly! Sure the weather's nice and all but if they're going to make me _work_ all damn day, then it's not worth it! This isn't Paradise if I don't get to enjoy it! We could totally find some place better to stay! So let's get out of here already!"

"Whoa, whoa, I never said anything about leaving! If you wanna bail, I'm not going to stop you, but I don't want to leave this all behind. I have a good thing going." She didn't sound so confident in that as the words fell out of her mouth. It's true, she was living in the lap of luxury, but she felt like she had peeked behind the curtain at a magic show and not only saw how the trick was performed, she saw the magician pistol whipping a stagehand. So maybe the cocktails were still good and the show was going to go off without a hitch, but she had to live with that knowledge.

That metaphor got dark, I apologize for that. Anyway, it took her a second to realize Helmeppo was still shouting at her when she snapped out of her train of thought. "You're not even listening to me!" he shrieked. "Stop daydreaming and focus! Look, I figure you and I could get on a scouting party, and then once we're far enough out of town, we make a break for it! Ditch them before they know what's going on, steal their stuff, and find some new group to join up with! One that will actually respect my talents!"

"And what talents are those?" she asked dryly.

"My intellect and leadership abilities! After all, I was the one who kept us alive after that whole Krieg debacle anyway!"

"Yeah, there are two of us left."

"What-EVER! Do you have to undermine me at every opportunity!?"

She already wasn't listening again. She was too busy rationalizing her reason for staying her head. She would just avoid Enel for a few days, that wouldn't be too hard. The resort was big, lots of space to move around. She could still take advantage of the luxuries while avoiding any sort of messy business whatsoever. If they wanted to pray to their shrine or summon demons or sacrifice virgins or whatever it was they did, fine. As long as she wasn't part of it.

"What are you… talking about?" Helmeppo asked. She looked up at him and realized by his horrified and confused expression that she had been thinking out loud. "There's an altar somewhere here? Sacrifices? What the hell have you been doing?!"

"I haven't been doing anything! I just live there, that's all! Whatever they want to do with their creepy rock is their own damn business, okay?!" She crossed her arms. "And since when do you have ethics about sacrifice? Didn't you give our people up to save your hide when we were with Krieg?"

"For one thing, that's not how it went down, and for another, there's a difference between saving yourself and ritualistic sacrifice!" He dragged his hands down his face. "I don't know what any of this means!"

Monet shrugged. "I don't know either, but what I do know is that even if they're a weird, creepy cult, I don't care as long as I get free cocktails and a massage once a week."

Helmeppo looked all manner of betrayed, scowling impotently at his supposed friend. "Look, if you really want to stay here, could you _at least_ try to get me a spot in the resort? I'm going to die if I have to sweep up around the pools another day!"

Monet scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Fine, whatever." Before she could shove past Helmeppo to resume walking around the resort, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and recognized the owner of the hand as Priest Ohm from earlier. Helmeppo had no idea who this man was. "Oh. Hey. What's up?" she asked.

He looked rather serious, but it was hard to read his expression through his sunglasses. "Hey, I came here with a message from Master Enel."

"Okay…?" She looked from him to Helmeppo and shrugged. "What's going on?"

"Yeah, he just wanted me to tell you that your services are no longer needed. The whole… 'relationship' you two had going, that needs to end."

For the second time today, Monet felt like she was blindsided. "What the hell does that mean," she said more as a statement than a question.

Ohm sighed, clearly not happy that he had to be the one breaking up with a girl for his boss. "It means that Master Enel is expecting… Well, you already know her. Nico Robin. She's on her way here and Master Enel wants to give her his full attention, so… he can't have some floozy prancing around in her underwear while she's around."

Helmeppo gasped and she quickly whirled around to glare at him. "I wasn't-! I-!" she whirled back to Ohm. "So what, he's just kicking me out?! Just like that?!"

"Just like that. Look, I really don't have time to deal with you, we got a lot of preparation work to do. I'd tell you that you can come pick up your stuff, but you don't have any stuff, so…" He shrugged. "Alright, that's all. I'll see you around, maybe." He turned around and started to walk off, to which Monet tried to go after him.

"Wait, wait, where the fuck do I go?! Where am I staying?!"

He just waved, keeping his back to her as he walked away. "Not my problem! Figure it out!"

Monet stood there with Helmeppo right behind her. She ran her fingers through her hair, not noticing his smug, self-satisfied grin. "What the hell is goin' on here? Why is that woman coming…? How many fucking times is Nico Fucking Robin going to ruin my life?!"


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Artwork for this fic can be found post/160916334807/one-piece-big-bang here!

Chapter 15

A few days before all that nonsense, Outpost Little Garden was preparing for an assault. Not everyone was happy with the idea, but those that were had already decided it needed to happen.

Prepwork for this endeavor involved gathering up firearms and ammunition. Because Little Garden was not one for raiding, piracy, or other general dickbaggery, they actually had a decent stockpile of firearms and ammo that went unused. Like a JRPG player, they had treated their weapons on a "but I might need it later" basis. Well, Blackbeard could be considered the final boss, so now it was time to cash in on all those Megalixirs. And by Megalixirs I mean submachine guns and a grenade launcher.

"This just seems wholly unnecessary. He doesn't know where we are, right? You weren't on the ship, but I can tell you he's got like a hundred guys with him," Nami said to Ace while he rummaged through the weapons stockpile at the storage house. "You're going in with six."

Ace had managed to recruit Luffy, Zoro, Koala, Margaret, and Baby to the cause of taking down Blackbeard. The others were either too injured to participate in an assault, like Tashigi, Sabo, and Sanji, or didn't have the strength or desire to help out in the fight. Nami was among the latter group and while she knew she couldn't actually stop a group of headstrong individuals like them, she could at least voice her opinion.

"The way I see it, Nami," Ace said, not breaking his stride. "They're on a boat. All we gotta do is put a hole in the boat and let the ocean take care of the rest." He gestured to the grenade launcher. "That's what that's for."

She crossed her arms. "Okay, so why do you need all the other guns then?"

"Well, that's for cover fire, when they start shooting at us while they're sinking."

"Sounds like you have it all worked out."

"I thought you liked when I did stupid stuff!" Luffy decided to enter the conversation now, bounding down the stairs where he had been listening to them talk the whole time. "You said that my particular brand of reckless danger was attractive in the best kinds of tingly ways."

"This is different, babe. I get all tingly when you do stuff like jump through a window or charge a horde of zombies and come out unscathed or shoulder tackle a locked door open. Y'know, cool, sexy badass stuff. This is just… You're going up against guys with _guns_. Who can shoot you really easily. Just… Be careful, okay? Promise me you'll be careful."

Luffy did promise that he would be careful, but all three of them knew that, inevitably, circumstances would occur that would lead to Luffy doing something life-threatening, but also probably really cool to watch. Nami couldn't win in this situation. If he died, she would be devastated, because she wasn't there at the end. If he lived, she would similarly be devastated because she would miss whatever badass thing he would end up doing.

She ended up with her arms wrapped tight around him as if she could keep him from leaving by going completely limp and forcing him to support her entire weight. She couldn't, but she could try.

"If it makes you feel any better," Ace said after the hug had gone on long enough, "There's always the chance that they've moved on and aren't even around the area anymore. I mean, we're going to go up and down the beach for a few days first, if we can't find them, well, we can't find them."

She sighed into Luffy's chest. "That does make me feel a little better."

Meanwhile, while Baby was loading boxes of ammunition onto a truck, Sanji was hovering behind her, clearly put out by what was going on. "It's not fair. I should be going with you."

"I know you want to, my love, but it is for zhe best zhat you stay behind!" She turned around to face him, putting her hands on his cheeks. "Look at you! You are still wobbly! You would be no good if a fight broke out!"

"I'm fine, I feel much better…" he protested, though he still seemed a bit out of it.

"It has only been a day," she leaned in to kiss him, "Since you were knocked around. I will be fine, my dear sweet knight. You know I am strong!"

He pouted at her, "I know you are, but I still should be there to protect you…"

She blushed bright red, putting her hands on her cheeks and twisting back and forth, on the verge of a full-blown swoon. "Ohhh~ To be loved like zhis, I cannot believe how lucky I aaaaammm~" She gasped when she felt his arms hook around her waist, pulling her in close so they could kiss even deeper. She ended up pinned against the side of the truck, her leg wrapping around her boyfriend's waist as they both momentarily forgot what it was they should've been doing.

"When you get back," he whispered into her ear as he moved to kiss her neck, "I'm going to cook you whatever you want. A romantic dinner by candlelight, and we can open that wine we found…"

Baby could feel her entire body warming up as she cooed, "You are making my heart race, Sanji~! Ooohh what else, what else?"

He moved from kissing her neck, starting at her shoulder and pulling her blouse open just a bit to suck on bare skin. "A massage, a bath, whatever you'd want…"

"HEY!" Margaret's angry voice echoed throughout the outpost, snapping both of them out of the cloud of romance. She was actually doing her job, loading her quiver and bow into the back of the truck. "Keep it PG-13, you two! There are kids around!"

Carrot looked up from where she was petting Lucy in her front yard. "Oh, don't worry about me! I live with them! I've become desensitized to it." The smile vanished from her face as she turned back to the cow. "And I'm fifteen I'm not a little kid I know what 'doing it' is…" she muttered to herself.

Once they were loaded up and provided with a general area of where to begin their search, they made their final goodbyes. This was different from a normal scouting job, they were planning on being gone for several days. It wasn't like raiding a mall or hardware store, so everyone was a little on edge.

Franky leaned into the driver-side window once everyone was buckled up. "Good luck out there," he said to Ace. "I'd loan ya the Frankystein, but she's only good for ground assault. Wouldn't do ya much good if they're at sea…"

"Appreciate it. But I think we'll be fine, we got a pretty good team here," Ace said, grinning. He stuck his hand out the window to wave at the rest of the group.

Luffy leaned out the window. "WE'LL BE BACK BEFORE YOU KNOW IT!" he shouted, taking one final look as they drove past the gate. The ones left behind watched them drive away and the gate shut behind them.

"God this sucks…" Nami groaned, letting her shoulders sink down.

"This suuuuuuuuucks," Sanji echoed her exact sentiment.

"Don't worry so much," Robin appeared behind them. "The worst that could happen is they all die horribly and we never find out what really happened and we never get closure."

Nami and Sanji looked at her, with some combination of horror, despair, and sickness on their faces.

"Too dark?" she asked.

"Too dark," they said simultaneously.

Thanks to Robin's failed attempt at black comedy, the worry and anxiety that something bad would happen to the traveling party spread like a miasma throughout the outpost. When Zoro, Tashigi, and Bonney were gone for a single night, the others were put on edge. This was a planned trip that would take several days, and they were knowingly going out into a conflict.

Their fears were misplaced, though. They should've been more worried about their own safety, because disaster struck the next day.

Several members of the outpost had a restless night. Especially Nami and Sanji, who were not used to empty beds and empty houses. Robin's morning felt off as well, as she had gotten used to heading out to guard duty in Margaret's watchtower.

Coby sensed that Nami was anxious. It was evidenced by the fact that she was actually volunteering for guard duty instead of being obligated to do it by someone else. She paced around the balcony glancing out into the horizon, as if they would be riding in at any moment. She heard him climbing a nearby ladder to approach her, but she didn't turn around to acknowledge him just yet.

"Hey. How's your hand doing?"

She clutched at her left hand, idly flicking at the splint around her fingers. She was still scanning the horizon. "Could be better."

The silence was heavy and awkward between them. "You know they're going to be fine, right? I mean… Luffy's indestructible. Remember back at Funkytown, when he fell from a second story window and he just stood up like nothing happened?"

"Heh. Yeah," she said, but it didn't sound very mirthful.

From their vantage point, the two of them could see movement behind the houses down the street, a solid mass that resembled a truck driving in the next street over. They raced over to the gate and Nami leaned over the half wall. "Holy shit they're back?!"

When the truck turned down the street, into full view of the outpost, Nami and Coby could see it wasn't one of theirs. Furthermore it was being followed by another pickup truck, and then a van, and even then an RV at the end of the line.

"Who are they…?" Coby asked. "Delivery isn't due for another four days."

"They aren't ours, that's for sure." Nami cupped her hands and turned around to shout to the rest of the outpost "WE HAVE COMPANY, PEOPLE!"

If they weren't on edge before, this was what did it. Everyone scrambled to stay on guard. Coby dashed down the ladder to his wife's side, leading her inside for cover in case things got raw. Law similarly stayed behind the safety of four walls and locked doors. Franky and Robin armed themselves. Tashigi drew her sword and moved to a side of the gate, despite her injury. Sanji covered the other side.

Everyone was quiet. No one dared scale the ladder to actually confront the visitors. The twelve remaining members of Little Garden all held their breaths in anticipation, until a voice rang out from a megaphone on the otherside of the wall.

"Hel-" a blast of feedback cut off the owner of the voice. "Ah horsefeathers." He waited until the feedback died down. "Hello! Anybody home?" There was silence. "Sorry to bother you folks, we were hoping to meet with one of you?"

Tashigi and Sanji could hear the megaphone owner whisper to one of his companions. "We're here to gab with a, uh… Nico Robin?"

All available eyes turned to her, but she just shrugged in a panic. "I don't know!" she whisper-shouted.

The silence became uncomfortable and the voice rang out again. "Well, crackers, folks! We're all on the level here! We just want to talk!"

When he still didn't get any response, there was the sound of quiet shuffling coming from outside. The group still held their breaths, thinking the party might have left, but not wanting to confirm it. After several minutes, the voice came over the megaphone again. "Alright, let's try this again. Now the boys here just went and poured some giggle water all along the outside of these walls and, well, I've got a match right here. Didn't want to resort to violence, but if that's what it takes to get Nico Robin's attention, I'll light this whole joint up if I have to!" His voice was surprisingly pleasant for someone who was threatening to commit arson.

It didn't take long for Robin to emerge over the wall, gripping the edge so hard her knuckles turned white. "I'm here! I'm right here, what do you want?!" She looked down to see the megaphone owner was a young man in his mid 20's. He wore a black baseball cap, a comfortable looking hoodie, well worn jeans, and tennis shoes. He was clean-shaven, his nose was square, and he looked like quite possibly the least threatening man in the world. He smiled at her.

"Oh, good! Glad we didn't have to smoke you out! Hello there, doll! You can call me Kaku! You mind letting me in so we can chew the fat?"

"I think we can talk right here like this!" Robin said. "I can hear you just fine with that megaphone!"

"I would really prefer a more civilized conversation inside!" Kaku said. His chipperness was irritating, especially because he just threatened arson.

They didn't have much of a choice in the matter. It was either stall for time and end up with the outpost in flames, or let them in. She still gritted her teeth. "Fine! But no guns! Put your firearms down!"

"Hey, that's square with me, young lady!" Kaku motioned for his associates, who were all wearing black suits with ties in direct opposition to his casual wear, to leave their guns behind. There were five of them, including Kaku. Three guys, two women, all of them save Kaku dressed to the nines. They complied, placing them on the ground in front of them and stepping closer to the gate.

Robin still didn't like it, but she opened the gate anyway, letting the group enter. She walked out to the middle of the cul-de-sac to greet them, with the rest of the outpost. When the guests were greeted with the sound of firearms cocking, Kaku threw his hands up in surrender and also protest. "Now that's not fair! I thought the no guns thing applied to you folks too!"

"You threatened to burn our houses down!" Tashigi shouted.

"No, we bluffed you with an obvious lie. As if we could douse your entire estate so easily. We just knew we would have to immediately resort to threats in order to get you to listen," a man who looked like a rock star with long, black, curly hair said. His voice was low and deep, like a bass guitar came to life. He was also possibly the most threatening-looking individual in the group. "You people are savages."

Kaku forced an awkward laugh. "Ahahahah! D-don't pay attention to Lucci, he's the reason I do all the gabbing here! Now, would you young folks mind putting your guns down so we can just talk like civilized people?"

With a fair bit of reluctance and even more angry muttering, the LG crew reluctantly laid their weapons down in front of them. Kaku beamed with satisfaction and turned to face Robin. "Okay! Great! Now you and I can get down to business!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly. "So, Robin, my superior, my master, if you will, he's been informed that a lady like you has some… powers? Some manner of control over the walkers? Issat true?"

Robin groaned, because she knew it would be about that, because of course it would be. "No. That's not how it works. They just ignore me and I don't turn when I'm bitten."

Kaku rubbed at his chin. "Well, that's not the information I got, but… we can work with it. Alright, I know it's sort of short notice, but if you could go and pack up a few things, we'd really like to take you to meet-"

"I refuse."

"Really? J-just like that?" Kaku said. "We're not here to kidnap you or anything, we just want you to meet our boss. He's curious about your gift." She didn't seem too impressed with that, so he added "And it involves an all-expenses paid trip to Florida? In one of the classiest joints in the whole state?"

Robin turned her attention to where Tashigi was standing at the gate. "Is this a Newgate thing?"

She furiously shook her head. "No way, I've never seen these guys before! I would remember someone who talked like that…" she looked pointedly at Kaku.

Bonney, who was standing in her driveway waiting for something to happen, said "Anyone else notice that we always get visited by weirdos who talk fuckin' weird?"

Kaku ignored that latter comment, but he and his associates seemed interested in Robin's initial question. "Newgate, huh? I didn't think he operated in this area! You're really associates of his?"

Everyone let out a collective "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" because despite what your parents have taught you, honesty is not always the best policy.

Kaku slapped his knee and the rest of his group seemed pretty happy about it too. "Well that's just tops! That changes everything!" He looked back over his shoulder at his associates and nodded. "Boy, the boss sure is gonna be over the moon about this!"

In a clean, cool motion, the four wearing suits reached into their jackets and pulled two pistols out of the inside pockets. Each of them aimed at the general direction of the Little Garden crew surrounding them, and Kaku also joined in after pulling pistols from the front pocket of his hoodie. Some members of the Little Garden crew made a token grab for the weapons at their feet, but a pull of the trigger as a lot quicker than the time it would take to bend over and pick something up.

"God- Damn it! How many times is this going to happen!?" Nami said, raising her hands in surrender. "People keep getting the drop on us!"

"I'm starting to think we're bad at this…" Bonney grumbled.

"Shoot first, ask questions later, that's our approach from now on," Franky said.

"Y'know, we came here hoping to bring Nico Robin down for a little chat," Kaku said, his smile not wavering. In fact, he sort of seemed happier that it ended up this way. "But now that I know you're working for Whitebeard… I think we'll just bring the whole lot of ya down to Florida."

So what happened next was... hm. Y'know, actually, by this point, it'll take a while to sum up everything. Why don't you all give me some time to put the events in order? I want to make sure I don't miss anything. Just sit tight, I'll be back in a little bit with the full story.


End file.
